Spring of 2011 has been an absolute and literal wash-out. Rain, rain and emphatically more rain. In the Ottawa Valley, Environment Canada advises that this past April was the rainiest ever on record. And now that we're into May the rain, incessant, overwhelmingly omnipresent, appears to be determined to break all previous rain records maintained for the month of May.

It seemed just a few days earlier before the onset of more rain events to top off what we'd already encountered, that the trails in the ravine close to our house might finally begin to dry, and the thick muck decline. On our hour-long perambulation in there this morning, all the advances in the drying-out process had been reversed, and the trails remain deep in thick, wet, slippery clay. A handful of trilliums are bravely advancing toward bloom, but early-blooming Serviceberry trees and Honeysuckle bushes are also late this year.

Ottawa's long-time spring festival, set to open May 6, will not be quite as billed; what is a Tulip Festival after all, without tulips? They are not yet in bloom and not about to bloom anytime soon. They've been retarded in their maturation thanks to the cold, wet and lack of sunlight.

Our own garden a case in point. We have, in our backyard, a micro climate, and even there it is obvious that what normally begins to poke above ground and fuzz our ornamental trees has been delayed this year. There are nudgings here and there, but nothing even remotely resembling the glory that had already overtaken us at this time last year. Our magnificent Magnolia tree last year had long been in sumptuous bloom by this time. Not this year; the magenta buds are still uncertain whether they are permitted to evidence themselves, given the prevailing atmosphere.

Nothing to really complain about since the weather, although not quite typical, is also not catastrophic. Quite unlike weather conditions elsewhere in the world, with the onset of tornadoes and flooding. Just a trifling disappointment which we hope summer will make up for. But that's just the thing of it; here in this northern clime our summers are too short as it is; spring awakening is doubly important to people who brave it through extreme weather conditions throughout the winter months.