Our plans for any day rest most frequently on the weather. Yesterday, today's forecast was for 28C, and high humidity that would result in a full day of rain events. This morning that forecast had been changed completely, it would be a cool, dry day instead. Little chance of rain, and it was 17C when we set out with Jackie and Jillie for an early afternoon tramp through the ravine.

 

 

Yesterday was a cooking day. Since it was Friday, we had the indispensable chicken soup to start our meal followed by a Caesar salad featuring cubed cooked chicken breast and parboiled cauliflower chunks, along with lettuce, tomatoes, bell peppers and Caesar salad dressing. A favourite for summer evenings. Earlier in the day I had baked lemon squares for dessert, that I called 'sunshine' squares because instead of lemon zest I had used orange zest to complement the lemon juice, and we were pleased with the results. Tonight we'll have quick-and-easy corn on the cob, grilled cheese sandwiches and blueberries for dessert.

The forest was still sopping from yesterday's rain and in places rainpuddles abounded. Jillie studiously seeks a way around those mud-puddles, Jackie, true to his gender, nonchalantly plods right through them; we prefer Jillie's choice and do the same, making a wide arc to avoid the muck. 

Usually when we're out on a Saturday ravine hike we don't come across any other people on any of the trails. Today's experience was somewhat different; dogs and people out enjoying the cool weather and making the most of it. In an hour-and-a-half of our time out-of-doors we encountered roughly eight others and their companion dogs. Irving reasons it's people who've returned from summer holidays. Mostly people we aren't familiar with, but everyone happy about their trek through the trails.

 

We wonder often how many people take note of what's around them. When we do come across people we know and mention something unusual we've seen at some point in our hike, mostly newly blooming wildflowers, they're puzzled, have never heard of them, have no idea what they look like and are frankly disinterested. Each of us to our own pleasures.

 

There's a fairly large colony of six-foot-tall Coreopsis that established a few years ago beside one of the bridges crossing the forest creek, and they're now fully in bloom, a mass of bright yellow floral heads. The presence of Himalayan orchids with their bright pink petals can't be missed; they occupy part of the hillside we descend when we enter the ravine, a beautiful welcome to an intriguing natural environment.

 

One area of the ravine is home to a number of wild apple trees, and perhaps through sheer coincidence not far from the apple trees are a group of hawthorns. This is a good year for apples, they're bearing a sizeable crop, and although they're small, they're beginning to ripen nicely. Some of the trees let their apples loose and under one, hundreds of small green apples stipple the forest floor. Irving shared a fresh sweet apple with the puppies from another tree whose fruit is turning red.

 

The privet trees too, which appear throughout the forest as an opportunistic invader that made itself fully at home, is ripening its poisonous berries. The dark. glistening fruit ornaments the trees and the pathways beneath, not to be eaten. All the while we were out it was overcast and cool enough for light jackets.

 

When we arrived back home, the sun suddenly appeared and it's been out warming the atmosphere up to 22C, ever since. Still cool enough to be comfortable working in the garden which I've neglected for several weeks. My conscience pricked me to begin weeding, cutting back overgrown shrubs and trees, and sweeping up the walkway of detritus. Our three ornamental crab apple trees have borne an astonishing number of crabapples this year, and they're being shed everywhere.

 

So the time was ripe to tidy everything up and that's what I spent an hour or so doing once we returned. I set about working on the weeping Jade tree that has grown enormously over the years, sending its arching branches everywhere, even into the yew next to it and the Manitoba maple next to the yew. Each branch I cut off bore hundreds of tiny crabapples, still green and thickly clustered. The cuttings filled a huge compost bag.

By the time I was finished with everything, from trimming hydrangea and rose shrubs to Canna lilies, I was well and truly bushed. The cool temperature of our erstwhile trail hike had given way to the warmth of the sun, exacting its own toll on anyone doing garden work. Jackie and Jillie were overjoyed to welcome me back

into the house; it meant they were about to be given their afternoon salad.