It's the time of year. The doorbell is getting a workout. University students out for the summer, trying to raise some funds to help further their education expenses. They tramp the streets going from house to house, some raising funds for charities never before heard of, like education for young girls in African countries, others for student work on house exteriors and interiors, painting, what-have-you. Their fresh young faces earnest in their efforts to introduce themselves and articulate what and whom they represent, and would you be interested?

 

 

Every time the doorbell rings Jackie and Jillie go into their usual hysterical reaction, furiously barking. When I open the door, they try to slink past me, but I'm onto them. A short conversation passes, the information is relayed and I wish the sweet-faced and utterly beautiful young people good luck. Just as well the enervating heat isn't as intolerable for the young as it is for the elderly. 

 

As for us, Irving had more than enough of walking the streets today. We really don't enjoy walking on the street one iota. It's the same with walking around an indoor shopping mall. It just isn't the same as walking through a natural environment. Pavement is not particularly kind to feet, either shod or unshod. And walking through busy commercial streets is not environmentally picturesque at any time.

 

 

But Irving decided he had to get the the oil changed in the car although it doesn't get all that much use. He's punctilious about having these things done in the vehicles he owns. Things he once did himself and no longer does, nag at him when the time rolls around, until he sees to getting them done. So he drove over to Canadian Tire and left the car there earlier today and took the 45-minute walk back home. 

 

Which is when we soon afterward went off for our hike through the ravine with Jackie and Jillie. Today's ambient heat is lower than yesterday's; we've gone from a humid 30C to 26C. All yesterday afternoon violent thunderstorms ripped through the area until the evening, dousing us with an enormous amount of rain. Yet by noon today the overheated wind and the hot sun had dried everything off. 

 

Our hike through the ravine was tolerable as long as the forest canopy shaded us. The wind's hot tongue did nothing whatever to cool down the fierce heat of the summer sun. But the vegetation surrounding us wasn't doing any complaining. With yesterday's ferocious thunderstorms and today's searing heat conditions are perfect for all the plants to thrive, and they are thriving.

 

It's hard to believe that we're only in early summer and plants like pilotweed, ragweed and thistles are already stretching above my head in height. Not to mention those robust wild parsnips, towering over other height-gaining plants in a pretense they're really trees-in-training. The sumacs's candles are already bright fiery red, we're already picking ripe raspberries; everything seems to be in a race against time this year.

 

We were intrigued to see tiny, bright-red slender flying insects foraging about on the tops of Queen Anne's lace. Evidently, from my research they're interlopers originally from Eurasia: common Red Soldier beetles. We left them to get on with their important work as we made our way through the pollinating meadow.

 

The heat generated by our bodies' movements through the forest continued to be felt long after we arrived back home. We spent as little time in the garden as possible, for the option of getting into our air-conditioned house. And then the telephone rang to inform Irving the car was ready for pick-up. So off he went again, on a 45-minute trek through the neighbourhood to access the commercial area. An improvement over his earlier walk, given the sun's position in late afternoon.

While he was out Jackie and Jillie declined to join me out in the backyard. I was busy staking up a large hydrangea shrub and next to it a tall clump of coreopsis just going into flowering mode. Then I trimmed the backyard weeping Mulberry, and dug up a few weeds, before calling it a useful afternoon chore done with.