One of those Ugh, Dammit! issues that people love to hate. And Irving has put it off as long as possible. Finally, he pushed himself to haul out all the paperwork needed to put an end to putting it off and attacked our tax returns. Mine is a breeze, his isn't. He splits income with me so that makes the endeavour a little more complicated. He does refer sometimes to previous returns he's kept a copy of, but they're not static, there's always changes in requirements. So procrastination came to an end a few days ago. And now it's done, and he's in a good mood, and prepared to zip over to the nearest post office.

 

 

He's not interested in filing online. Not interested in having anyone else do the returns for us. Determined as in all things, to do it himself. It's what turned him into a plumber, electrician, interior designer, artist, builder, all while working as a government bureaucrat. There was ever (and forever) nothing he wouldn't tackle on his own. So now they're done for another year and that's that. 

 

 

It's been quite the day, so warm we could fling the windows open, and Jackie and Jillie were happy to splay out on the deck in the sun. As different from yesterday's cold, damp, overcast day as night is to day. Birds were delighted, the cardinals and robins told us so, singing from early morning to afternoon.

 

 

Since it's Friday and I usually bake a dessert to top off Friday-night dinner I decided on cupcakes today. I had recalled yesterday that when the children were young, the many desserts I had prepared to accompany meals at closing. Among them marble cake. So I thought, why not marble cupcakes? And that's what I did. I divided the batter when it was ready, and added cocoa powder to one half, then spooned vanilla and chocolate batter alternately into the cupcake papers. With a cake, and its greater volume, the idea is to 'marbelize' the batter by passing a knife back and forth between the vanilla and the chocolate. I bypassed that step.

 

 

Unlike yesterday, Jackie and Jillie needed no little jerseys in the 17-degree Celsius atmosphere, a difference of ten degrees, and the presence of the sun for the most part of the day. Not, however, when we went out, though the ambient warmth was quite wonderful. We weren't the only ones making the most of such a lovely spring day, and there were quite a few dogs renewing their cookie acquaintanceship with Irving.

 

 

We saw that bedding grasses are beginning to present themselves on the forest floor, and so are woodland violets and wild strawberries. Trout lilies have erupted in crowded colonies here and there, literally thousands of individual plants. Too early yet for any flowers to appear, and then my eyes hit on one tiny bright yellow trout lily flower; the first yet to greet us.

 

 

Further along we walked the trail beside trillium territory and while Irving thought we might see some flowering, I was skeptical -- until we spotted quite a few opening their scarlet blooms. Because of the Leda clay in the forest soil in this geography, our trilliums are bright red, with the occasional pink bloom or striped-pink flower. I do go in search of white trilliums, but that will be a little later in the season; they tend to bloom later than the scarlet ones.