Our neighbours living directly adjacent the ravine entrance have finally returned home. They took a few months off, as it were, and spent that time in Mexico, living in a rental home that came complete with one large dog and three cats. They left their own little dog at home in the care of their daughter and lived a comfortable, carefree life for those months on Mexico's pacific coast, in Baja California.

 It was very nice to see them back. We've known them for 24 years, when they bought that house from the original owners, also very nice people. They moved into their house with their fraternal twins -- son and daughter -- at a time when we were caring for our granddaughter, then age five. We would meet regularly at the bus stop down the street awaiting the arrival of the school bus.

At that time the people living on the street made fast friends among one another. Their children, roughly the same age played together, and the stay-at-home mothers met often for coffee and talk. The atmosphere was homey and friendly. All that has changed to a degree. Some of the original residents moved away to smaller homes, their children off on their own. Most of the original owners that remain are now retired.

And the people who moved in long after are often quite cold and reserved. That old street-camaraderie is not quite gone, since the originals still feel connected to one another, but it's not quite the same. So it was good to see they'd had such a good time, feeling renewed, appreciative of how fortunate we are to live so comfortably.

Wild cherry blossoms

When we did the weekly food shopping this morning we were surprised to find a lot of empty shelves at the supermarket; highly unusual. We were and we weren't surprised to find that prices are still skyrocketing. As we exited with our groceries rain began to patter down lightly on a quite cool morning after our recent experience with a week of extreme heat.

By the time we arrived home the sky had turned very dark and rain was once again voluminous, just as it had been most of yesterday and through the night time hours. It didn't look as though we'd be getting out. But by two in the afternoon there was a break in the succession of rainshowers and we set off for the ravine. That's when we came across our returned neighbour. 

We were grateful to be able to be out in the woods trekking the trails for several hours. We had tucked little rainjackets for Jackie and Jillie in our own rainjacket pockets, but the rain held off. There was the occasional break in the clouds when the sun briefly appeared and we began to plan for working in the garden on our return home. Meanwhile, there was much to see in the forest. The wild cherry trees are now in bloom and the dogwood has begun their bloom time as well.

The hawthorn and the apple trees lost a lot of petals in the rain and the wind. There were two trees down on the trails, not very large ones, and they had been dead awhile; the weather conditions just acted to knock them over. Still, it's startling to see a tree fallen over on a trail. The forest floor is packed with extensive rain puddles, actually little ponds where, we can guess the mosquitoes are laying eggs like mad.

The foamflowers have finally emerged and it's taken no time at all for their flower-fluffy heads to appear among the ferns and the trilliums. This time of re-discovery when all growing things are given that 'new lease on life' that always astonishes us, is a time to treasure, and we do value it, immensely.

On our return things went according to plan since the rain continued to hold off. I had wanted to spread some aged sheep manure on some of the garden beds and did just that. Then I planted some dahlias, zinnias and marigolds. Irving was busy filling the garden pots and urns with a mixture of soil, peat moss and sheep manure in preparation for my beginning to plant them as well. 

We had splurged last week on bringing home so many flowering plants, I'll have plenty of them to assess and make my choices of colour, form, texture and size in planting more in the garden beds and in the garden pots, until that wonderfully pleasurable job is done. Jackie and Jillie monitored my activities as official overseers, and Irving took care to remind them not to rush out onto the road at passers-by.