We tend, at night, to keep our windows open when the exterior temperature falls below the indoor temperature. There's often a light breeze that enters the window and wafts across to our bed. We also have a floor fan on until final 'lights out' when our reading for the night is declared over and we turn to sleep. Jackie and Jillie tend not to stir throughout the night. If either of us gets up to the bathroom, they sleep on. But in the morning with the window open, if there's a dog barking somewhere in faint hearing, up they get and return salvo after salvo.

 

 

Although from early morning forward the air was thick with humidity and a level of haze, the sun remained behind clouds and a freshening breeze made up for the humidity ... almost. Wandering about the backyard with Jackie and Jillie, the overnight temperature inversion left the grass fairly drenched and it took its time drying, given the absence of sun.

 

 

We decided for a ravine hike early in the afternoon after reading through most of the day's newspapers. There were several items that were too recent to be reported in print, and that we saw on line from the CBC. One, of a 19-year-old firefighter in British Columbia, a young woman who made it a personal priority to help in efforts to control unusually wild forest fire breakouts, who lost her life in the effort.

 

 

Another, a story about a young man employed by a British Columbia energy company, driving a pick-up in a remote forested area when he came across a young moose in desperate straits. He opened the passenger side door of the truck and the young animal leaped in, just evading being caught by a bear that was stalking it. The man drove with the moose in the truck for four-and-a-half hours out of the bush, where the two became very well acquainted with one another. For his quick thinking the man's reward was loss of his employment for flouting the company's policy on wild animal neutrality.

 

 

When we headed out for the ravine, we came across no wild animals other than the two we brought in ourselves, but we did come across a delightful sight we haven't seen in years. A delicately beautiful clump of Indian Pipe had emerged from the forest floor, a result of the heavy rains of the past week. 

 

All the forest vegetation, in fact, is thriving. More ragweed, taller and thicker in numbers than we've ever before seen, as well as milkweed in great numbers, both now flowering. And the proliferation of Black-eyed Susans grows year over year in the forest's pollinating meadow. Flowers of a size and differentiation well beyond their cultivated cousins in our garden. In the meadow, there are great clumps of beautifully ruffled triple-row petals, as well as bullseye flowers, none of which variants I've ever seen other than in the forest.

 

When we returned from our forest foray, we focused on the gardens, to do some clean-up, including removing the weeds that grow with such zest alongside the curb next to our property; their presence looks unsightly. My eye wanders from time to time through the lush green foliage of the garden to espie now and again, a weed that has grown thick and tall, almost resembling the plants that we've been long familiar with, surprising us with their presence and for their impudence, being yanked out.

 

Later, Irving went out on an errand, and while he was out I prepared a batch of cookie dough for ginger snaps. The house was redolent with the fragrance of ginger and molasses on his return home.