Our favourite cashier wasn't at her usual cash-out this afternoon as we prepared to pay for food items we'd gone through the supermarket aisles to select. There was a little sign that read "Cashier-in-Training". The only other station that was manned and not dedicated to self-serve had a much longer line of people awaiting their turn. While we waited for the several people ahead of us to be served we noticed for the first time a number of very young women, the older familiar faces we've been accustomed to seeing appear to have vanished. We've known them for years and always thought fondly of them; efficient, friendly and hard-working.

 

We're coming across more shelving and refrigerator spaces yawning empty, waiting to be filled. Advertised specials seem to be in absent supply. We've had to ask lately more and more frequently for the products we look for to be re-ordered and re-stocked. There seems to be a shortage of store personnel to fill in the daily tasks that make these consumer-necessary meccas of edible merchandise capable of serving the needs of a consuming public.

 

The young woman in training couldn't have been more than 16, 17 years old. Bright and personable she will be a credit to the store employing her. Standing beside her at the cash behind the plexiglas was an older woman in a headscarf, gently prompting her colleague. They were, in fact, seeming to have a good time, laughing together and even once a hug passed between them. They couldn't have been more accommodating to the store customers, eager to please and willing to listen; going out of their way to look for missing sale items.

 

Part of our food shopping experience is to gather together non-perishable items to deposit for the Food Bank. We generally fill a plastic bag with these products, but we've few of those disposable bags left now and they're not to be had anywhere. I still have several robust plastic bags saved, and decided I'd place the items we bought in one, then at the large cage holding donated items, I'd deposit them and keep the bag. In went a four-box carton of macaroni and cheese, four tins of tuna, four canned meat and four soup cans.

We'd gone out earlier than usual with Jackie and Jillie to the ravine, with the intention of getting them and us out before forecasted violent thunderstorms erupted. Another one of those days with the wind in play, but an overheated wind which did little to dissipate the build-up of internal heat that invaded us as we followed the forest trails. This is a penetrating heat, allied with a thick, moist atmosphere of humidity heralding the approach of storms.

 

But while we were out, wind-scudding clouds continued their interplay with the sun, and it was the sun that was dominant. In areas where the forest canopy failed to shield us from the sun from its direct-overhead position, it felt unrelentingly HOT. Unsurprisingly, we came across no one else using the trails. We had ample leisure to make note of the huge proliferation this year of milkweed, in the progress of flowering.

 

The candles of the Staghorn sumac are ripening, turning the deep red they'll sustain well into the winter months. Black-eyed Susans and Queen Anne's lace are turning the pollinating meadow into a showpiece landscape. I decided this time it would be worth the effort to wade into the shoulder-high, deeply thick grasses of the forest bracken leading to various colonies of the flowers. My legs were completely covered, my arms were not. But it was well worth the effort, to see the kind of flowers quite unlike those in our garden, of bullseye Black-eyed Susans.

The thick mat of grasses underfoot make progress slow, with a tendency to catch a boot in mid-stride, threatening a trip-and-fall, so the going is slow and deliberate, as you feel out each step for security. The allure of the flowers is irresistible, however, compensation for any irritating bother it takes to approach them near enough to appreciate their unique beauty.

 

And then, once home again, the gardens insist that they too be appreciated, and we haven't the heart to disappoint them, although Jackie and Jillie are in no mood today to linger in the garden, waiting silently to be taken indoors, their little paws washed, and given the opportunity to cool off from their exertions. Much later, when we returned from our shopping expedition, and they joined us again outdoors while we unpacked the trunk of the groceries, along came a ravine friend with her black-and-white pit bull that we first met in the ravine when he was a puppy, years ago.

 

He dragged her up the driveway, anxious to say hello on this hot summer day. We haven't seen them in awhile. They had also been in the ravine and found their excursion excruciating; she had been certain the robust wind would alleviate the burn of the overheated atmosphere, but found just as we did, that the humidity and heat along with the blast-furnace heat of the wind was just exhausting. And our friendly pitbull got his share of cookies with the assured knowledge that the ravine isn't the only venue where they're available.