It seemed reasonable enough to agree with Jackie and Jillie this morning when they suggested it might be a good idea to set out for our afternoon hike through the ravine earlier rather than later. Although the early morning began with sunshine, matters up there heavenward changed quickly as clouds moved in shoving blue skies elsewhere. Leading us to think that our puppies are becoming sensible little creatures, after all.

So, doing the bare minimum of breakfast clean-up off we went. Most of the clouds sailing through were white and puffy, but soon enough dark clouds began to shuffle along, muscling their way through the white to eventually predominate. Clearly, it would soon be raining. Turned out to be a cool day, jackets required, but pleasant.

The fancy took us to take another, rarely-used side trail we were once familiar with but haven't used in a year. Going off from the familiar to someplace new always excites our two little dogs, and they ran happily forward in anticipation of what may lie ahead. What did lie ahead was a very narrow trail that was well pitted with wet muck, with just enough of a rise on either side to allow careful passage where it was dry.

And then the trail suddenly diverged onto another, newer portion. Sensibly since a part of the original trail was no longer there. Instead there was a large pit where the hillside had given way where the leda clay soil had collapsed taking trees and other vegetation with it, into the creek. It was raw looking and a reminder of just how given to collapses this area is.

We gingerly continued the route we were on, dipping down toward the creek, hoping to see the pair of Mallards we'd been told were last seen there, where the creek forms a bit of a pond. That pond actually the creation of beavers that keep returning. Before we reached the pond, though, there were other, smaller areas of collapse along the increasingly narrowed trail, and we decided to surrender our mission, and returned to the main trail, retracing our steps.

We did find some newly-emerged coltsfoot there down by the water, though. Coltsfoot had bloomed earlier in the rest of the forest and had gone to seed, whereas here they were fresh and attractively yellow, bright and perky.

Trout lilies are once again outdoing themselves, with more of the plants blooming than in the average year. Among hundreds of plants, a bare .05 percent end up blooming, but there's a bit of an increase this year, just like last spring. It can be fairly exhausting sometimes, doing these treks, but always fascinating and in that sense alone, satisfying.

Then it occurred to us that since it was still fairly early we could take a short drive over to the Cleroux farm to see what they've got in their greenhouses. The Cleroux family is a large one, sprawling all over the area and they all seem, invariably, to be involved in horticulture. They're independent of the chains that have their own garden shops, and we've found over the years that their products are more mature and of better stock than those sold elsewhere.

By then it had begun raining, but there's shelter in the greenhouses, so off we went with Jackie and Jillie ecstatic that they could share 'outside' time with us other than in the ravine. Each has their place in the truck, Jillie crammed blissfully beside Irving, and Jackie on my lap. We hardly expected, on such a cool, rainy day, still fairly early, to see so many cars in their car park with people trundling about, their flat carts full of plants.

It was beyond gratifying, though to see the greenhouses full of options this year, unlike last. We were able to get most of the bedding plants and the plants meant to be grown in our garden pots in one place, this year, from zinnias to begonias, canna lilies to dracaena, and New Guinea impatiens, carnations and geraniums.

They've been arrayed on the deck in the backyard. No room for them awaiting planting to be stacked where we usually place them at the front of the house, since that, mostly, is where they'll be planted, because there are so many bags of garden soil stacked there instead, meant to fill the garden pots, and to create a new base on the front lawn to receive grass seed in Irving's plan to regenerate our pathetic lawn.

 

Never without solutions to irksome situations, my husband suggested last night that when we arose next morning we should plan to shower, set the table for breakfast, then all of us set off in his truck to acquire the flowering plants I was  hoping to be able to get yesterday only to find that though businesses are opening, and gardening centres were declared by the government of Ontario to be 'essential' (perhaps for peoples' mental health), there was so much time-consuming rigamarole involved in accessing most garden centres we had just given up.

The one place where we were able to find what we were looking for was packed with avid gardeners (though everyone managed to keep distance, wore face masks and gloves and behaved quite civilly) but had hardly any stock left in their greenhouses. A paltry few of the plants we wanted. We had never before encountered a situation like it; people so anxious to buy plants, both ornamental and food-bearing that they converged in such numbers that long line-ups to enable entrance to garden centres snaked around blocks.

We would, my husband declared, return to that country setting, avoiding urban and suburban areas, where we have always obtained our plants. Hoping that an earlier hour would prove more fruitful. And though when we arrived early, as it was, there were still many people milling about, yet two of the greenhouses were offering a greater choice and hadn't yet been entirely ransacked. I swiftly acquired all the bewitchingly beautiful flowering plants I wanted, despite finding some I planned for not being available. We dragged the loaded cart to the cashier, and we were done.

In the afternoon, after I had changed our bed linen and coverings to more appropriate spring-summer replacements, finished the laundry, done a bit of weeding of the grass, while my husband mixed soil, peat moss and sheep manure to begin filling our many urns and pots set out in the garden, we all went off for our afternoon hike through the forest trails. Jackie and Jillie had behaved so unlike their usual selves while my husband and I were busy outside; they simply stayed within sneezing distance of wherever we were, a refreshing change.

And so was our ramble through the woods. The influx of people not accustomed to a forest landscape but desperate to find an outdoors area where they could stretch their legs, breathe fresh air, revel in a different scene, has diminished to almost nothing. Now that recreational areas have relaxed their requirements and parks are open, people are returning to their usual pastimes, abandoning the forest trails. Bicyclists had forged new pathways where none had been before down the hillsides, no doubt doing their part for environmental erosion in their search for speed and thrills. They won't be missed.

Those we happened to come across were all people and dogs, that we've known for quite a while. Jackie and Jillie were enthusiastic about seeing some old friends. One in particular, a gorgeous Rhodesian Ridgeback, a shy and gentle creature, they especially were glad to greet.

And we were pleased ourselves to see a few 'firsts' for this spring in the ravine. The first of the red baneberry we've seen emergent, a long way from maturity but already bearing its floral spray to be transformed into brilliant shiny red clusters of berries -- deadly but beautiful in late summer. And another fruit-bearing plant, one more familiar to most people, wild strawberries have now begun their flowering period, and by mid- to-late June tiny, delicious strawberries will be shining in the sun piercing the forest canopy and glancing through the forest floor.