Our heads do a quick jerk to attention, a totally involuntary reaction, while our ears try to shut out the piercing racket on those occasions when someone rings the doorbell and Jackie and Jillie spring into action, as though acutely aware of their obligation to serve and protect the humans who provide them with daily meals and all the comforts of a home they allow us to share with them. Their shrill voices quickly subdue and their tails come into swinging action if it's someone they know.

This afternoon it was someone from Rogers eager to sell us on the fiction that they could provide exactly the communication links we want and need far better than Bell does, and at a superior monthly cost to us. Summer-employed university students take their persuasive gifts very seriously, earnestly willing to support what it is they promise on behalf of the Internet communications giant that pays their salaries. We can only hope what they're paid has nothing to do with the number of potential clients they influence.

The hard sell contacts we're exposed to are no longer as frequently front-door events. It's usually by telephone and through emails we consider pure junk and consign to that expendable category. The incessant telephone calls are the most irritating, and they invariably ring us at the most inconvenient times. Years ago we supported the CRTC when it initiated a screening program designed for these unwanted calls, but nothing substantive ever came of it.

Well, today is yet another in one of many summer heat spells; a bit of a relief from the 32C, but still humid, the air thick with moisture. But the sun was interrupted intermittently by clouds and as the afternoon wore on, the clouds began lowering and becoming more dark and threatening by the hour. When we exited the house with Jackie and Jillie for our usual afternoon hike in the ravine, it was with the thought that while we were out deep in the woods, the clouds could open.

As soon as we entered the forest, that thought passed our minds. The atmosphere was far more comfortable, not as heated, and a cool, breezy wind prevailed. So, what's new in the wildflower department in the ravine today? Well, thistles are starting to come into bloom, their tufted little mauve flowerheads very attractive. And pilotweed, some of it towering in height over my head, is also now beginning to flower. Along with more earth-bound bugleweed.

Strangely enough, despite the robust breeze that cooled us so nicely, mosquitoes were about in abundance and aggravatingly irritating. My bare arms were quite popular with the stinging little blood-suckers. 

Our circuit completed, we emerged from the forest, and were just walking down the street to our house when a few light raindrops fell. The sun had been totally absent all the time we were out and it looked as though we'd finally be getting some rain. When we reached home and our garden to poke about a bit, Jackie and Jillie sensibly gave it a pass and made right for the shelter of the garage.

I walked about the garden a bit as large, swollen raindrops plopped about me and on me. The swift progression from little light drops to unmistakably heavy drops heralding a good rain-flush was unusual. And soon the rain was in full flush, shellacking the bright colours of the garden flowering plants, a visual delight. And saving us from the trouble of having to water the garden. Fifteen minutes later the sun emerged and the rain continued to give us a genuine sun-shower. This was short-lived as the sun withdrew again leaving the sky in the grip of unrelenting dark clouds.