Yesterday gave us yet another of those perfect midsummer weather days, despite the warning from Environment Canada that a tornado was expected to touch down in our general area. We've been enjoying a cooling trend the past few weeks, with reasonable temperatures, tempered by a cooling wind and daily rain events. It was sunny most of the afternoon yesterday until suddenly it wasn't any longer. At around half-past five thunder began to thump ominously and Jackie and Jillie responded. Thunder rolled across the sky for a good while, and it eventually occurred to me to get them out to the backyard before a storm struck.

 

Good idea, but a little late in the offing. Just as we went out and down the steps of the deck, the largest, thickest, heaviest raindrops I can remember began falling. This displeased Jillie mightily. But I wanted them to pee before dinnertime, and kept them out. Jackie performed, Jillie hid under the deck, and I was getting pretty wet. We scampered back into the house, and then the full force of the wind and the rain took over and the house interior became dark.

 

We only discovered this morning that while that fierce storm was inundating our area, a handful of kms away a tornado did rip through the area, wreaking damage on the landscape, damaging roofs and house sidings, and knocking down mature trees. Fortunately for us for the most part these adverse weather systems seem to strike in the West of Ottawa, not so much the east, where we are.

Storm over eventually, the exterior was left dripping but still somehow able to absorb the day's addition to the enormous amount of rain we've been treated to, this summer. And today we've enjoyed mostly sun. In effect, another Friday as usual, and as usual, there are  routine things to be done, and so we were busy doing them. Irving had some errands to run and while he was off, I did some baking.

 

I had decided to bake cupcakes for today's dessert, and thought of Butterfly cupcakes, and then it occurred to me they could also be orange in flavour, so I zested a large orange and began putting together a batter for cupcakes. In went with the orange zest, though I also used vanilla flavouring. When the cupcakes had finished baking and had mostly cooled, I made a frosting and into that went the rest of the zest. The cupcake tops were sliced off, iced, halved, and arranged like butterfly wings on top of the cupcakes, anchored in place with a dollop of Seville orange marmalade.

 

When Irving finally returned home, off we went with Jackie and Jillie to the ravine. The temperature at 24C was just right, as long as the forest canopy shaded us, while up at street level directly in the sun it felt hot. Wild blackberries are slowly beginning to turn black, nicely ripening, taking the place of the now-exhausted raspberries.

 

Irving had forgotten to bring along his bag of cookies, an oversight for which an explanation and an apology didn't do much to clear up the puzzlement evinced by Jackie and Jillie when no cookies were forthcoming. Leading Irving to take extraordinary steps to find ripe berries for them as compensation. And while they were happily eager to eat the berries, the absence of cookies-mystery remained.

 

The jewelweed growing alongside the forest creek is now in full bloom, the bright orange little orchid heads sitting high on the long stems of the plants catching the sun, as the water of the creek ripples by behind them. I attempt to get as close as I can to the creek bank, but it's shored up with large boulders so it's tricky footing to get near them.

It's a lovely day, and we feel fortunate to have such close access to an urban forest that adds so much quality to our lives in exercising ourselves and exposure to entertainment related to the natural denizens of this unspoiled natural venue. Much less the wide array of people and their companion dogs that we've come to know over the decades.