There are some mornings when you feel just too comfortable to heave yourself out of bed, content to lie there, to talk in low tones, not to awaken your bed companions and contemplate the day ahead and all the possibilities your mind brings forward. Jillie, however, is attuned to even quiet sound and hearing  us murmur to one another, she has a tendency to leap down and emit short, sharp little orders to us to get up, for heaven's sake. Ignored, she will leap back onto the bed and begin to knead us with her paws, the weight of her little body ensuring the comfort we felt just moments earlier be overtaken by the discomfort of her considerable weight for a small dog.

 

Jackie for his part, is content to remain where he spends the night ensconced at the foot of the bed and elevated on the thickly rolled-up bedspread. While his sister persists in rousing us from bed he will eventually paddle over and join her, both pacified by a plenitude of hands reaching out to stroke them until such time as we agree to begin the day.

 

 

And what a day! A succession of warm -- not hot -- and certainly not humid days with good stiff breezes and eventual rainfall when the  sun has finally been overtaken in its periwinkle-blue sky, by darkly-streaked clouds to hover awhile before they find their voice in the thunderous introduction to a storm. What more could anyone expect of the perfect summer day than mild temperatures, clear sky and freshening breeze followed by an air-cleansing rainfall? The gardens are happy, and we're happy.

 

We decided on an early afternoon trek through the ravine on a day that mosquitoes decided to take the day off. The breeze, of course, helped. The saturated forest has responded to this predictable weather pattern by generous-sized wildflowers and overgrown bracken. We've never seen so much ragweed before, and hadn't before realized what a lovely perfume emanates from the plants. Just as well we're not allergic, between the ragweed and the goldenrod, proliferating everywhere on the forest floor.

 

As we trooped along choosing one linked trail after another, we decided to continue our forays, and because the atmosphere was so conducive to deep enjoyment of the environment with nature on her very best behaviour, we ended up taking trails we haven't been on in ages. In so doing, coming across storm-damaged areas and downed trees telling the story of an altogether different type of weather that roared through the forest now and again in the past several years.

 

Yet the forest carries on, and new saplings appear to begin the long process of replacing what has been lost. There are any number of ash, pine, fir, beech, poplar, Manitoba maple, even elm, that have begun to restore their presence in the forest understory, many of which will mature and again dominate the forest canopy. 

 

 

In the meanwhile, we came across some patches of sunflowers in bloom, asters just beginning to bloom, and pilotweed hitting their stride. We saw the occasional red baneberry sporting its cluster of fiery-red berries, and saw as well white baneberry, both of which are poisonous. As is the ripening berries of the Privet trees that have colonized the forest. The sprays of berries of the Elderberry trees are beginning to swell and colour, and the apples of the wild apple trees are ripening. Irving found one of the apples ready to eat, fresh, crisp and appealing. Sweet? Decidedly not -- yet.

 

And we saw amanita muscaria beginning to emerge, just a few mushrooms so far, thanks no doubt to the constant rain, and likely far more to begin popping up here and there. Last summer they were numerous, their caps brighter, yellow-to-orange, and festooned with little white dotted clusters of raised areas. We speculated that squirrels might nibble them for the 'magic mushroom' effect based on more than ample evidence that some of the caps' edges were clearly 'tested'.

 

Jackie and Jillie, fortunately, show no interest whatever in any of these obviously edible products of the forest soil. The apple that Irving and I tried out was of  no interest to Jackie because it lacked sweetness, but Jillie didn't mind; she ate what was offered.