In the time we've known him he's grown from a dark-eyed sprite of a child peddling his toy car up and down his parents' driveway, five houses up from ours, to a 20-year-old obedient son, solicitous about his parents, and ever willing to help by doing chores around the house. His university studies now over until the next semester, he has a summer job, but on his days off there he is, in the company of his father, following orders.

We can count on a wide smile and greeting from him whenever we see him, and a neighbourly 'catch-up' conversation. On our way to our daily ramble in the woods, there they were, father and son, working on putting together a new flower bed at the front of the house. Mohindar directs and Imran renders his opinion, then commences to do the assigned work. Their smiles and greetings were as anticipated, with the added information that they had locked themselves out of the house.

Every door of the house was firmly, securely and resolutely locked off from entry. They had no keys with them, no cellphone, nothing. So my husband went back to our house to get our cellphone for their use. To telephone Rajinder, to inform her that her men were unable to get into their house, and could she please return home and rescue them?

No, they said, thanking us, they didn't need anything else. They weren't interested in going over to our house. It was a nice enough day, they didn't mind staying outside, and they could continue the work they were doing. It was a nice enough day, but threatening to rain at any moment and since they couldn't enter the garage either, we offered to give them our garage door key, but no, that wouldn't be necessary, they said.

By the time we returned from our walk, surely an hour later, and not ourselves having to make use of the rainjackets we and our little dogs wore, they were still outside. They weren't certain they had got through to Rajinder, because it seemed the batteries in our cellphone (which we rarely use) had gone dead. My husband went around to look at the side door of the garage, and said he'd be right back as soon as we washed our little dogs' muddy feet, and he would have, he assured them, no trouble opening the door, since it didn't have a dead-bolt.

Just as he ambled over a few minutes later, Rajinder came walking up the street from the bus stop.

Twenty years ago, when we first began exploring the myriad trails that entered and looped about the extensive ravine that anchors this community with its forest and waterways, we had come across a faint offshoot of a trail and looking down into the ravine from that trail we encountered a rather surprising sight. Someone had obviously taken it upon themselves to take possession of a tributary of the main creek, along with its sloped sides,
to deviate from nature's very own natural and haphazard selection.

Introduced by someone was the vision of an orderly, refined and quite extraordinary gardening scheme that took advantage of the natural surrounding to impress upon nature that a human hand with all green digits and a mind to alter and reform, could impose upon her a landscape quite unlike the one she had herself gifted to the community. Except that this was not a gift to the community. This landscaping effort, wide, deep and broad in its execution, was the presumed possession of one individual. A house sat at the lip of the ravine's border, on a small, dead-end street, and it was the owner of that house who had made that presumption.

An enquiry to the municipal offices brought the information that the individual in question had somehow, years previously, maneuvered his local reputation as a pillar of his community, a church elder and acquaintanceship with town councillors to enable himself to be legally invested with the property in question. Elsewhere, anywhere else in that protected natural area, it was strictly off limits for anyone to assume they had the right of encroachment.

From time to time we wandered that way, each time to see new 'improvements' to the area, an elongation, where the sloped sides were tiered and carefully tended with plants, elaborate stairways built, canopies erected, the creek tributary closed off, a languid, cool pool resulting beside which lounges were placed, and planters hosting colourful annuals carefully situated to bring colour to the area, along with garden pot lights to illuminate it at night. There were compost boxes built of wood, and the entire scene below illustrated one man's obsession, and what hard work and determination could produce; a modern-day hanging garden of Babylon.

We hadn't been that way for years, when it occurred to us during a shorter stroll than is our usual wont in the ravine, as a result of incessant rain events, to go along that way out of curiosity. It represents a relatively short walk in a direction we don't normally take. And it was evident as we approached that something was different. The elderly retiree who had devoted so much time, energy and cost to the production of a manicured garden out of nature's own devotion to a natural forested environment had obviously given up the ghost.

We've no idea how long it's been since the treasured garden that had been ringed with "private property" and other warning signs of trespass had been abandoned. But it was more than obvious to us that it had been. It has almost completely reverted to its unadorned-by-human-hands state, to its natural and equally beautiful state. It is now as it should be.

She is elderly and relatively frail as a result. When we pick her up we can feel her bones protruding, there's a dearth of fat in her fleshly covering. Some of her front teeth are gone now, as she verges on her 19th year.

Her hearing is badly compromised. She hears only too well on the upper sound register; sharp sounds startle her to the point of panic.

Her eyesight at close range is problematical, although her peripheral vision remains fairly sound. Something like my own vision, as it happens. We've got to be careful around her, not to startle her by sudden movements. Else she scrambles in a desperate bid to escape what she feels may be a violent encounter with an immovable object. Though she has been known to walk into doors and walls.

We must now ensure that the stairs leading down to the basement are shut off from entry for her. She has blundered into the entry that was once so familiar to her and fallen down those stairs, at least to the point where they turn and there's a platform, halfway down. She has far less balance than she once had and now no longer runs up the stairs to the second floor; we carry her up to bed.

Although she considers the sofas to be her place for rest she no longer leaps up to them as she has done so easily up to the last few months. She lingers before them, and we lift her. And she sometimes forgets space parameters, scrubs about to get herself comfortable before lying down and tips herself over the edge of the sofa onto the floor.

All these distressing changes alert us to her advanced age and a future we would far prefer not to linger on. This week she's been behaving strangely again as she does from time to time; more skittish than ever, disinterested in her food, forgetting her toilet hygiene, and being unwilling to walk much on our daily routine in our nearby ravine.

It was time for her monthly anti-biotic regimen meant to forestall the appearance of mouth-and-gum-related infections and it appears that the drug administered twice a day is having its effect. Finally, she has expressed some interest in her food. Last night, while entirely ignoring her own canine kibble dressed up with cooked chicken and chicken soup, she did deign to eat mashed potato and grilled hamburger. She is quite canny about food, far preferring table food to canine kibble.

At breakfast this morning she refused her kibble and waited until a breakfast egg was prepared for her. After eating the egg she advanced to the kibble and gave us a few grateful moments.

When we first moved to our current home twenty years ago, others had already been living in their houses for three years on this newly-built street in the suburbs. The suburbs have since been incorporated into the expanded city boundaries.

Our house and one other were built years after the others had been sold and moved into, on two empty lots that had been set aside. Our house, it was explained, was an experimental model brought by the builder to this site, based on models more common in California.

Large, bright and attractive, it took my husband's attention and imagination for its large expanse of walls and open concept design. After we moved in he set about swiftly transforming the interior to reflect his own personal aesthetic, among which was a more 'closed' concept.

We were accustomed at that time to seeing young children in our neighbours' homes. Ours had long since left home to embark on their own lives, careers and families. Now, when we're out walking along the street we see those same children now mature, attending college and university, or the workforce, others visiting with their own young children.

And, increasingly, this is becoming a street of retirees. A picture has emerged among the retiree community here where the man of the household retires first, his wife continues working for a few years, and then she too retires. It's the pattern we ourselves pioneered (I think) almost fifteen years earlier.

One of our neighbours, retired a week earlier, was yesterday struggling to push a reel-model lawnmower. She's someone who enjoys gardening and intends to devote far more of her time to looking after her up-to-now lacklustre gardens. The reel lawnmower was a gift from her husband to her on her retirement.

Her husband had confided to us some misgivings about how things would proceed on her retirement; whether they could successfully keep out of each others' hair. Hmmm.

Canadians seem fixated on the weather. It is so much a part of our lives, because we live in a geography of atmospheric extremes, particularly in some parts of the country. Ottawa, the nation's capital, is the second-coldest, snowiest capital of the world. Hardiness is expected of people who live here, to endure extreme cold temperatures, high incidences of fierce snow storms, ice storms,deadly fog conditions.

In the summer we slog through extremely humid and hot conditions. And this spring has been phenomenally wet. Making it difficult for farmers to get out in their fields and even begin to sow the early crops they normally plant. For city dwellers there are other problems. We've received an inordinate amount of rain and for those low-lying areas and those without newer, upgraded sewage systems to carry away the excess, there is always danger of flooding. The city's sewer infrastructure was installed before the population became so dense, with its concomitant stress, and untreated sewage is known on a number of occasions to have spilled directly into our main water resource. The city's beaches are often closed to public swimming because of the danger to human health with the elevated levels of e.coli bacterium.

In the past few days a series of monsoon-like rain systems have passed through the area. We've experienced rolling thunderstorms, one after another, dumping sheets of rain over the landscape. The thunder and lightning have been spectacular, representing displays of nature's intemperate power. Lightning strikes hydro poles and out goes the power. It strikes homes and fires result. And the incessant rain, in its tropical plenty has soaked the ground beyond its ability to absorb any more. The result has been hundreds of calls from desperate home-owners to emergency services, because of flooded basements.

There have been street closures because the water has flooded to such a height that traffic cannot proceed. And there have been evacuations of entire streets until the flooding has sufficiently subsided to assure municipal authorities that there is little danger presented to the homeowners, before they're permitted to return to their damaged homes.

A small tornado passed through the area, part of what is called a "supercell" storm. Apart from which winds, during some of these storms reached between 60- and 110- kilometres an hour.

As for us, we were startled, yesterday, when we took advantage of a lull in the rain to venture out into our nearby ravine, to discover that one of the highest banks of the flooded creek, running alongside one of the major ravine trails, had collapsed into the creek taking all manner of trees with it. Leaving the trail half its width where before there had been a considerable space beyond the trail where the bank edged out over the creek.

The creek itself can no longer run unimpeded because of dams created by detritus containing old logs, twigs, branches and who knows what else, having been swept along by the flooded creek, (tumbling down the hillsides, from the canopy above due to the pressure of the high winds and the pounding rain) and ending up jammed and stuffed at bends in the creek and by the struts from the bridges over the creek.

What is left of the trail looks vulnerable to further collapse; a large, elongated crack can be seen in the now-narrow trail's clay-and-sand-augmented-with-gravel base; best to avoid it entirely. Which means taking alternate, somewhat inconvenient, and truncated trails. What can be done eventually to ameliorate the situation is anyone's guess.

After a series of non-stop rolling thunderstorms yesterday morning there appeared a brief interlude when it seemed the sky had become lighter, so we dressed ourselves rain-protectively and our two little dogs for a brief venture into the ravine, just to get a little exercise for the day. As it happened, we got no further than exiting the garage. For there, to the south, was another gathering series of dark, threatening clouds obviously heading toward us.

Verified by the deep rumble of a thunderclap, then another, and then, even as we stood there hesitantly, the drops began to assemble, until they became a veritable torrent of truly impressive proportions. We stood in the shelter of the garage, looking outward, toward the front gardens as greenery lapped up the nurturing downpour. Mind, that was a lot to ask of the soil, which had already been well drenched by a previous day's rainstorms, not to mention overnight soakings and this morning's generous offerings.

But we have always enjoyed watching heavy rainstorms, as the rain pounds down on pavement or soil, bouncing back up again briefly in splatted displays of immense coverage. And the spectacle of lightning flashes, the rolling drumbeat of rumbling thunder has always represented an additional pleasure for us. The power and magnificence of nature.

As it happened, eventually the rushing rain subsided. And then picked up again even more ferociously as yet another storm hove into position. Then another, leading to a succession of rain abatement, then resumption. Finally, we were able to see the sky turn more silvery in hue in the distance as the thunderclouds moved on, and we thought we'd try our luck in between rain events.

When we entered the ravine we experienced the canopy dripping relentlessly, emulating the rain itself, though it was in temporary abeyance. And when we dipped down into the ravine at the foot of the first long hill, it was to see the creek swollen well beyond its normal capacity, the water almost reaching the bottom of the bridge overpasses, rushing helter-skelter to the great Ottawa River beyond.

Later, in the early afternoon, several beavers were spotted wandering about outside the confines of the ravine. One of them, obviously a youngster, waddled up our neighbour's driveway. We can only hope they found their way back home and their flooded-out home will have been restored to them.

Our gardens and their maintenance represent a collaborative effort. My husband does the heavy lifting and I do the light stuff. In the fall after the garden pots and planters are emptied of their soil, he hauls them under the deck in the backyard for winter storage.

In the spring, he hauls them back out again to position them variously, then fill them with composted and manure-enriched soil so I can then begin re-planting at the earliest opportunity, exercising my aesthetic wit.

Of course, long before that routine became established he busied himself excavating the soil around the house, then filling the areas with gravel, and finally bricked them up, constructing our small piazzas and walkways, and the stone retaining walls for the front gardens. He cut the 'stone' to fit, using basic tools, a chisel and hammer, and took his time to present us with an garden infrastructure meant to last the vicissitudes of weather and time.

For that matter, he re-built the deck in the backyard when the old one had deteriorated beyond salvage, and he constructed the larger of our two garden sheds where our winter-garden-protection materials are kept, along with the lawn mower and snow thrower and shovels.

For us and our two little dogs, the gardens represent a peaceful and beautiful haven.

Yesterday, when he was out looking around for hardware to replace the lock in our garage door - for we have suddenly found ourselves without keys, due to a misadventure - he noticed that there was a late-season-gardening sale, and brought home to me a shrub rose, three miniature rose bushes, and six clematis vines.

He loves to surprise me and I enjoy being surprised.

Our warm, sunny and dry days enjoyed this past week are gone, replaced by humid, cool, overcast skies that turn to thunder and rain. Yesterday we wore rain jacket; even our two little dogs were outfitted with newly-acquired rain jackets, although while we were out rambling in the ravine there were no serious rain events, merely desultory sprinkles.

Better to be prepared than taken by surprise, as we have been, often enough in the past.

The humid weather has brought the mosquitoes back with a vengeance. We saw fewer dragonflies, though there were more damselflies in evidence, obviously not totally committed to exterminating all the mosquitoes. Little wonder they're there in great numbers, since the low-lying areas of the ravine just recently were able to absorb the huge quantities of rain we'd received in previous ongoing rain events.

On this ramble we came across someone we'd seen in the distance on previous occasions who obviously meant to avoid coming in contact with others, particularly, one supposes, people with companion animals. He had one of his own that we were aware he was determined to protect, and we surmised it was a ferret.

This time he made no move to avoid us, standing directly in the path we were taking, and hovering over a large old tree stump I regularly deposit peanuts on, for the squirrels.

As we approached he picked up his little ferret and he smiled at us, acknowledging my husband's greeting, and then inviting me to approach and pet the ferret, if I felt inclined to.

It was a beautiful animal, a tiny, perfect face with bright and curious little eyes, perky ears, and lovely beige-brown colouration, with silky-soft fur. It was curious enough to sniff my open-palmed hand, then swiftly lost interest, yawning elaborately and frequently, exposing its minuscule teeth and extremely pink tongue.

We stopped awhile to talk, and the ferret was placed, on its leash, on the ground and exhorted to get some exercise: "Don't just stand there, Winston, get going", the man urged. Our miniature poodle seemed uninterested in the presence of the tiny animal, while our toy poodle seemed curious enough, but as is usual with him, at first blush, hostile.

Riley snarled, Winston hissed. Demonstrating his willingness to resolve the conflict in personalities, if necessary, on his own terms.

She has led a long, exuberant, adventuresome life as a little dog. She still has bouts of energetic enthusiasm. We still take her out daily for hour-long rambles in the woods. She is sometimes joyful although seldom really playful. Playful was never part of her character. She has always been standoffish, reserved, not given to displays of affection, other than when she was a puppy.

She was the last of her litter to go. It must have been difficult for her as a puppy to find herself suddenly alone, her siblings all gone to homes and she left on her own, waiting for someone to adopt her. Her colouration was marred by grey appearing at certain places where she should have been all black. She isn't a pure-bred poodle, but a poodle-Pomeranian mix.

We were always concerned with her health and exercise always played a large part in her daily life, as it has done with ours. She has a companion, but he, a smaller pure-bred poodle (not as highly intelligent as she, but hugely affectionate) has a temperament quite unlike hers. He was introduced into the household when she was already past seven years of age, and she never expressed any interest in his existence, although by now, with the passage of a dozen years, she has accepted his presence.

For the first dozen years of her life and then his, they had their teeth brushed every day, then every other day, then twice weekly. Which, while helping to keep them healthy, did not serve to protect them against losing some of their teeth. At eighteen-and-a-half, we can no longer brush her teeth, she won't allow it. And her gums have a tendency to become infected, making her very ill indeed.

The veterinarian recommended a protocol whereby we give her oral antibiotic drops for a week twice daily, then cease for a month, then re-commence. Since we began this protocol she has never again come down with the severe illness she first suffered last year, when we feared we would lose her. Pain and suffering caused by a gum infection that could have spread to her heart and other internal organs.

She may be aged, but she's ageless in her remaining energy which outdistances her smaller companion in endurance and enthusiasm, though she has her moments. Her heart and lungs are in great condition, we're told by the veterinarian. She has memory lapses, but then so do we.

We've long since become accustomed over the years, to the squirrels; red, black and grey, anticipating our daily ramble through the wooded ravine close by our house. It all began, actually, with Stumpy, the small black squirrel without a tail, originally confronting us, demanding a peanut.

I'd just shortly before begun setting out peanuts at discrete spots within our ambling range which takes up several kilometres of forested trails within the ravine. It hadn't taken long for him to figure out we were the source of the offerings. He'd stand before us until we selected the largest of the three-chambered peanuts and toss it to him. And he'd often carry it a distance of several feet, even stand, back to us, efficiently removing the shell, extracting the nuts, and eating them, then return to where we stood watching, to ask for more.

Over time, other squirrels became very much aware of these postings and we'd see them at the exact places where peanuts were regularly deposited, awaiting the day's nuts. Eventually, yet another stump-tailed squirrel mustered the courage to confront us, in a different part of the woods that evidently represented its territory. The others, those with luxuriant tails, were never as bold, though some would, when peanuts were tossed directly at them, scramble to acquire them, while the action of a peanut flying through the air toward them would panic others and they'd scramble defensively in the opposite direction, sans nut.

In the winter, chickadees began to seek out the peanuts at their regular locations. And just lately, we've become very aware that crows too have recognized our presence, and await our arrival, then follow us through the woods,candidates for welfare deposits.

Yesterday afternoon marked the first time a resident chipmunk whom we'd seen often before avail itself of peanut deposits, actually ran after me as I descended the long hill into the ravine. When I turned to face him scrambling toward me, he hesitated, stopped and waited. It was evident what had occurred; the peanut I'd tossed into the hollow of an old tree stump had bounced, fallen out and rolled down into the bracken behind. In seeking out his usual peanut, finding nothing, the chipmunk surmised that following me for the next deposit would be to his advantage.

I threw a peanut toward him and he instantly retrieved it and began stuffing it into his little pouch. Then he stood, continuing to regard me, whereupon I threw another peanut toward him, which he also retrieved and stuffed alongside the previous one.

Imagine: a personal fan club.

When we were young, living in the first home we bought, a simple semi-detached one-story house located in Richmond Hill, Ontario, and well before the birth of any of our children, my husband brought a boxer puppy into our home. We raised him as well as two young people who had never before had the responsibility, pleasure and irritation of teaching a young animal to be domesticated could manage.

He wasn't the brightest of creatures, but we enjoyed his company. That was well over 50 years ago. We would look on with amusement when, while sleeping, he would turn halfway over on his back, raise his legs and begin pumping them. Or he would twitch and bark half-heartedly, on occasion making other gestures and sounds, so we knew that yes, dogs, like human beings dream, or have nightmares disturbing the peace of their sleep.

It would be many decades on before we'd have another animal in our household, long after our children left to embark on independent lives of their own with their own responsibilities, pleasures and irritations. Only one of our children invests part of her life in surrounding herself with companion animals.

As for us, we've two very small dogs; a female miniature poodle-pomeranian mix, and a toy male, apricot poodle. He is now twelve years of age, while she is halfway to 19. He never has dreams, or if he has them, we've never been made aware of them. She, on the other hand, from the time she was a puppy, would often have her sleep marred by some kind of mental disturbance that would cause her to yip in anguish. We would often reach over to her to comfort her, and the sound would stop.

Last night the sounds she made were of a different quality, sharper, more punctuated and emphatic and the time intervals between quite precise. I rose from my sleep and went along to where she was laying, on the loveseat which serves as her bed, and stroked her until she groggily awoke, stopped yelping, then settled back to sleep.

Earlier in the evening, before we'd gone to bed and she was put up on her sleeping platform (we now carry her upstairs and into her bed; it's been several months since she has wanted to mount the stairs on her own; although she has plenty of energy, she is losing confidence, it would appear), she'd begun her usual ritual of digging up the little blankets we place on the loveseat for her comfort, and as she now sometimes does, forgot the space limitations, ending up falling on the well-carpeted floor.

Yesterday's weather was superb; not too warm, good breeze, and dry. Perfect for our daily walk in the woods. The breeze was of enough strength, even on the forested trails, to keep the mosquitoes at bay. And a multitude of gorgeous dragonflies were present, along with a pair of Damselflies, to do their part in both entertaining us by their presence, and making short work of the mosquitoes.

The sun beautifully illuminated the flowering bedding grasses which themselves perfumed the air about us. There are buttercups in abundance, and daisies, and a sprinkling of hawkweed, and finally the fleabane with its perfect little pink flowers and their bright yellow centres have also begun their bloom. Tangling through them all, is the cowvetch, whose bright purple-blue blooms give colour contrast to all of this.

We heard cardinals and saw a flycatcher which seems, oddly enough, to appear at a certain place in the ravine around this time of year for a week or two, and then goes off elsewhere. We watched robins doing their running-walk along the trail, looking for what? earthworms, other creatures of the soil? The ground is still drying out from all the rain we've had these past few months.

The idyll, unfortunately, was disturbed by the incessant jarring, intrusive chaotic jumble of sound that bored through the natural, pleasant sounds of the ravine. It's silly-season time, when people think they are complementing Nature by putting on various spring festivals. Invariably, these are colourful, and dreadully loud. Loudspeakers blare sounds that are confused by those incapable of discriminating properly, with music, though there is little resemblance to be found between music and that inchoate mess.

Two women and a young girl dressed in costume dance on top of one of the floats in the Carivibe Parade on Saturday. Fred Sherwin/Photo

Just as well these events take place seldom enough that we can grit and bear them. They do seem to give pleasure to many within any society. And so be it.

Home maintenance never stops. Most people hire out contract work to get the job done. That isn't his style. There isn't much he won't tackle on his own, from plumbing to electrical, drywalling and finishing basement space for practical use, excavating and filling in with exterior cobble for garden hardscapes, building garden sheds and decks, designing and producing full stained glass windows, installing hardwood flooring, and ceramic and marble flooring as well. Ripping out existing countertops and replacing them with sturdier-constructed replacements.

And, as he is currently doing, repairing shoddy workmanship and installation of the windows of our house. Built only several decades earlier, current CMHC standards allow for inferior products to be installed in all new housing construction. If we're looking at tract housing, all home builders seem to search around for "efficiencies" to allow them maximum advantage in sales profit. Figuring, no doubt, that problems when they erupt, will occur long after the guarantees have lapsed.

The builders contract out services to various independent contractors, many of whom don't subscribe to the theory once taught to apprentices that a job well done is a satisfying one; there doesn't appear to be too much in the way of pride of workmanship, nor does it appear that those working on construction sites view what they do as professional work worthy of naming it as such.

Moreover, the factories that now produce ready-to-go elements that are installed in house construction themselves use inferior materials and designs because they're cheap and functional. So the window frames my husband is now repairing are constructed of finger-jointed pine, not solid pine. And those who installed them left space where there should be none, for water to enter and rot the inferior finger-jointed frames; the protective "ledge" above the windows that are meant to drain rain away from the windows cut too short, too shallow; inefficient.

Little wonder that most of our neighbours began replacing their house windows years ago and others are still continuing the process at the cost of tens of thousands of dollars. The replacements are vinyl-covered window frames to ensure that constant maintenance, cleaning, inspection and painting every few years is a thing of the past, for them.

The builder of our home was one with an excellent reputation for producing good quality construction. Our previous home which we'd lived in for an equal number of years, was also built by him, and far superior in workmanship than those we'd owned and lived in previously. Yet oversight was obviously a low priority, enabling sub-par materials and workmanship to prevail.

If the single most important thing in life is to be loved and cherished, then I am singularly blessed, at 74, to receive daily assurances that I am both loved and cherished. My beloved companion of the last sixty years informs me by word and deed each and every day just how much I mean to him. I can only hope that my less forthcoming avowals are clear by my own actions toward him that his love of me is well and truly reciprocated.

His daily testimonials to our shared love are so very evident. In sighting me a smile invariably takes the place of a frown. His smile across a room is more than enough to lighten my mood, it is as though I have been tenderly caressed. His remarks about my physical appearance are invariably wickedly ticklish.

He appreciates my cooking and baking skills, my home-making abilities, my conversation. It is my constant presence in his life that he appreciates most of all, for he loves me.

If anyone could attest to being more sublimely gifted than I am by providence, perhaps even destiny, that would be miraculous. Not boasting. Marvelling. Hugging myself with the pleasure of good fortune.

Privileged beyond words.

We are privileged to live at a time and in a place where sheer unadulterated pleasure is readily available to us. Where, in clement weather and time of year, we have made a little family tradition of embarking on a garden inspection each morning, post-breakfast.

We exit from our breakfast room through the patio doors onto the deck that stands above our backyard, inviting our two little dogs to accompany us. And as they range about our small plot of land, sniffing, detecting the night-time presence of raccoons out for their casual forays, we look about at the various foliage-and-floral offerings on display, in a succession of bloom-times that delight us no end.

From the tulips and fritalleries, the hyacinths, anemones and bleeding hearts, to the clematis, the roses, the peonies, Canterbury bells and poppies and all that acclaim and herald their entrance into the springtime garden on the way to summer.

The presence of these beautiful creations of nature satisfy a deep aesthetic need and an even more vestigial assurance that while some things may be ephemeral, swiftly passing us by, nature's elemental presence assures that existence continues for her creatures, regardless.

Gardeners love to see plants thrive in their gardens. It is beyond dismaying to witness a previously-healthy plant on the cusp of blooming suddenly wilt and expire. Clematis vines are especially appreciated in a garden for their vertical appeal. Their blooms can be exquisite in form and colour and profusion, enlivening a garden spectacularly.

I have the privilege to have been pleasured immensely by a succession of clematis vines over the past twenty years in my current garden settings. Some of these vines are those that were originally planted when the gardens were first initiated through a long process of ameliorating the mostly-clay soil with peat moss and enriched garden soil and then subsequently over time additionally, with applications of compost from our compost bins.

They have seldom failed to delight during their bloom periods. There are even clematis vines breaching the fence between our gardens and that of our neighbour's, with her vines straggling through toward our side of the fence to bloom lustily in the more encouraging sun exposure found on our side.

Last year I noticed for the first time that a malady had attacked one of our backyard clematis vines, and hastily replaced it. This year, no fewer than four vines in the gardens at the front of the house have suddenly died back after having vigorously grown onto their supports; one of the vines was actually on the brink of opening a myriad of mature flower buds. And then: wilt. The foliage looked as though it was starved of moisture and curled shrunken in size.

It appears they have been struck with clematis wilt. Caused by excessive moisture. Which is what we have experienced this very rainy spring with incessant thunderstorms and heavy all-day rain events. Creating an atmosphere beloved of the fungus Ascochyta Clematidina. Which, it would appear, could be treated proactively, which is to say before the fungus gains a hold, by spraying with sulfur fungicide.

On the other hand, it is entirely possible that the afflicted vines may self-resuscitate within a short
while, or within the space of three years - or not at all.

During the weather-benign months of the year, this is a superb place of refuge, a heaven-on-Earth for nature lovers. The purity of the air, the casual prevalence of birds and animals, the lush growth of trees and the general atmosphere of surrounding nature entrances and rests the mind.

Our daughter bought a six-acre property there, on the edge of the Canadian Shield, six years ago. And there she has lived since then, with her daughter, and her countless domestic dependents. For, having the responsibility of taking care of ten dogs, two cats, eight rabbits, meant she could not legally live within the confines of an urban municipality where ownership of that number of animals is confined to those living on farms.

In the spring, the surrounding woods and wetland on her property come alive with green and with living creatures. The deer which can be seen throughout the winter months seem far more assured with the disappearance of the snow and they forage often directly beside her house. Which is a log building built originally as a schoolhouse, in 1864. Since modernized and considerably added to.

In the spring out come the turtles to lay their eggs, the watersnakes from her wetland to soak up the sun, the dragonflies to consume the mosquitoes and black flies, the deer, chipmunks, rabbits, raccoons, beaver and squirrels.

And a vast number of various bird species, the most delightful of which are the hummingbirds returning faithfully every spring, to the familiar terrain they are generationally accustomed to, with its myriad of well-hung glass feeders requiring constant filling.

About six years ago we began to notice the prevalence of squirrels in the ravine we visit daily with our two little dogs. Previously to fixing our brief attention on the squirrels' presence, we had noticed them but as a background, assuming them to be there by birthright, but hardly taking notice.

Then one morning as we ascended the first long hill into the ravine, and coming abreast of a tall old pine that sits at the junction of the first trails, just over the creek, we noticed a small red squirrel, sitting at rest on a small branch adjacent to a tree growing beside the pine. I suppose that's when I conceived the idea of bringing peanuts along with us. The first few times peanuts were brought they were modest in number and sprinkled haphazardly, before a routine developed whereby the peanuts would be placed in precisely the same place in crooks and crannies in tree bark and crotches and atop old snags, daily.

Which was also when we began to notice that squirrels would begin to await our daily deposits, along with the occasional perky chipmunk eager to stuff its little pouch, and crows as well, alert to the daily offerings. A few days ago there was one of the red squirrels traversing an old fallen log, across the creek. Directly behind her, two tiny offspring.

One of which appears to have taken up her favourite vigil at that very place where her mother had long been accustomed to appearing.

We felt a kind of mild despair in early spring, because of the unusual cold, wind and rain. It was evident that the garden was also in a state of mild disbelief, as was the forest in the ravine nearby. Everything seemed in a state of apprehended expectation. It certainly didn't represent the usual springtime experience as far as flora re-awakening from the chill of winter was concerned.

We're still in spring by the calendar, although summer is not long on the horizon. But how things have changed. We've had occasional bursts of really hot weather. We've experienced torrential rain, frequently, and along with it - and sometimes without the rain - extreme wind conditions. Which have taken their toll, both in the garden and out in the forest, bringing down boughs and trees themselves.

On the other hand, we've had sun, when it hasn't been raining, and nature has more or less balanced itself out. The result being that everything appears to have caught up; the trilliums, trout lilies, fleabane, daisies, buttercups, Jack-in-the-pulpits, dogwood, bunchberry, have all managed to get themselves in colourful bloom in the forest.

And the garden, too, has redeemed itself, with its normal succession of bloom-times for various perennial plants, trees and shrubs that have scrambled to catch up and succeeded admirably. Thrilling and pleasing us beyond words each time we look out upon the beauty that surrounds us.

Perhaps it is only an implied guarantee of youth. The legend:

Powered sportswear is the sportswear created and manufactured to make being young more fun.

I recall, over two decades ago, how absurd it seemed when I began to notice that manufacturers' labels were appearing on the outside of garments as opposed to the interior. And that fashion appeared to be accepted as a statement of fashion in Tokyo at the time, among image-conscious Tokyoites. I'd bought this light cotton outfit with its hooded top and elasticized-waist trousers at a favourite shopping emporium, the Palm Arcade. I loved the walk to get to the Palm Arcade from the vicinity of the Meguro Station, near where we lived at the time; it took over an hour to get there but it was a lovely walk, passing schools, train crossings, commercial areas, shrines and temple gardens.

Almost twenty-five years later I still have that little outfit of light, white cotton. I wear it on our walks in the ravine, when the mosquitoes are really awful, to help ward them off. When I bought the outfit I was fifty years old. In retrospect, perhaps owning and retaining and wearing it still allows me to stay young and have more fun at the same time...?

Oops, my tongue's got stuck in my cheek.

The loud, harsh, clanging sound of heavy machinery woke us from a sound sleep several mornings earlier. The homeowners of a house directly behind ours on the street behind that which we live on, have decided to have an in-ground pool installed.

They are parents to two pre-school children, a boy and a girl. Delightful children; when their parents happen not to be around, the children will wave to us and call out "hello!" Which, of course, we are pleased to respond to.

This family, two young adults and their children, are the third to occupy the house since it was built almost a quarter-century ago. We knew the previous two owners as pleasant, sociable people with whom we could pass a few friendly words of greeting, and more. These two adults, man and wife, are different. When they moved in I had made an especial effort to welcome her, and passed a pleasant introductory conversation with her. And there the pleasantries ended. For never again would either of them deign to notice our presence. Churlish at worst, indifferent at best.

Not for us to be overly concerned that their two very young, inquisitive and bright children will now be blessed by the presence of an in-ground pool in their backyard. The children are cared for through outside sources throughout the working week, permitting both parents to work. The benefits of such arrangements are many; a good home in an excellent neighbourhood, and at those times when the children are at home in their own house and both parents are busily engaged with the few 'leisure' hours outside of work hours and home chores, they may use the swimming pool.

Those times of pleasure, leisure and tension are, in our northern climate, limited to a few short months of intense summer heat and humidity. Having tens of thousands of dollars of expendable income for such an enterprise with such a limited return leads invariably to other questions of values and priorities and the seriousness with which people view parenthood.

The extreme ferocity of the storm was what made it unusual, in all of its demonstrative elements.
First off, it was an extraordinarily hot and muggy day, the high hitting a record of 33-degrees centigrade for this date. We'd had a hot and hazy, humid day, lots of sun beaming down to make it truly uncomfortable for those who had no means of escape from the scorching heat.

There was an extreme weather watch out for violent thunderstorms for the afternoon. Sure enough, by half-past four the sun had gone and in its place gradually darkening skies. And then, the day was transformed from bright, humid and sunny to overwhelmingly dark. We'd never before seen the atmosphere so altered, as to appear completely black in an oncoming storm.

The volume of rain that began to fall, striking right against the back of the house made us very thankful indeed that my husband had completed re-installing our bedroom window yesterday; that timing at least was perfect. We rushed to the front of the house to watch the rain pelting down in the light falling from the light standard we have installed in the front gardens, bright against the prevailing darkness.

Then we rushed to the back of the house where we watched the rain coming down in heavy sheets of relentless onrush, to suddenly hear the pinging of hailstones against the back windows. Large as small marbles, some of them, causing concern that they might ping a little too destructively against the glazing.

Throughout this drama the thunderous claps of persistent clashes between clouds alerted us to the obvious; that this was an unusual storm of unusual intensity, with lightning slashing the sky menacingly, alternating with the rumbling thunder. Our two little dogs were oblivious to all of this, sleeping peacefully throughout the storm.

When it was finally over, we ventured outside to look about the garden, at the rose canes that had been brought down, needing to be tied up, the ornamental trees and shrubs that seemed to have shifted, leaning at an angle that we hoped would be corrected as they dried, the peonies, irises and geraniums that looked fairly distressed. Tomorrow's another day; then we'll conduct a more intensive inventory.

But we were fortunate this time around; tens of thousands have lost their power and will have to wait until Sunday for it to be restored. There was plenty of basement flooding in the area. On a nearby main street access was closed off and some wit had a raft floating in the middle of the road where buses and cars were stalled on the side.

There was a heat and air quality advisory issued today by Environment Canada. One of those really hot days, fairly early in the season. Temperature expected to rise throughout the day to 33-degrees-Celsius. With thunderstorms a possibility in the afternoon. So it's humid, muggy, hot. Best, we thought, to hie ourselves off for our daily ravine walk right after breakfast.

Sure enough, in the wooded ravine there was great relief from the moist heat of the gathering day. Robins know enough to seek the shelter of its cooling canopy and they chirp happily in gratitude. We saw a cardinal streak scarlet across the trail as it accessed one high perch from another. The squirrel population is rather lackadaisical from the all-enveloping heat envelope. Our two little dogs required plenty of encouragement to trudge along. Perhaps at the ground level they occupy they cannot take full advantage of the blissfully cooling breeze that we enjoyed.

The bunchberries were still in flower, although the dogwood panicles have surrendered to oxidation. But bright yellow buttercups are now blooming along with Solomon's seal, and there are also delicate pink fleabane with their soft yellow centres beginning to flower. And the secretive and lovely Jack-in-the-Pulpit are still in bloom.

Before we exited the ravine an hour and a half after we entered it, we witnessed a delightful and unusual scenario. At the foot of the first long descent into the ravine from the street where we live is an old pine with lots of nooks and crannies that we daily stuff with peanuts. Beside it, on an old log straddling the creek below, there was a tiny red squirrel with two miniature clones beside her. Could she be teaching them where to go to seek out daily treasures?

He's a devoted do-it-yourself person. If there's anything to be done, he will tackle it. Nothing fazes him. If he's interested in a particular process he reads about it, becomes familiar with it, and then proceeds to do whatever it takes to produce it himself. And he's always successful.

It's not just that he has what seems a natural talent for doing things, be it furniture-making, (using vintage, not electric tools), or landscape painting, or designing and producing stained glass windows - or tackling jobs that require great physical effort, excavating, digging, hauling great loads of dressed stone, he will do it. His sense of curiosity augmented by another of capable confidence propels him.

And he isn't fond of asking for help from anyone. Except, on occasion, when it's feasible, from me.

When we moved into this house over two decades ago, because of its very high ceilings the first thing he acquired was a double set of scaffolding. And over the years he's had many occasions to call that scaffolding into use. As he did again today, setting it up on the deck, when he had to re-install the bedroom window that fierce windstorms had twisted out of its tracked hinges, last week.

He replaced the hinges and track for new, sturdy ones, re-strengthened the window frame, and because the glass was factory-sealed in three layers, it was too heavy to re-attach with the frame from the inside of the house; so had to be separated. The frame screwed back into place from the inside, and the glass placed back into the frame from the outside. And it's done, but not without a good deal of ingenuity and sweat.

Seems there's nothing much he isn't capable of.

We usually celebrate our wedding anniversary on our own. We've never made a fuss about such events. What we've always fussed about is our daily lives together, minute-by-minute, considering that to be of the utmost importance, the rest merely symbolic. As symbolism recognizing an event of the past, along with its importance to one personally as a signal event in one's life is important, but not as important as the way in which the present is carried out.

We honour past events by remembering them, and discussing them, but not by going out of our way to celebrate them as something more extraordinary than our lives together.

We usually please ourselves by using the occasion of our wedding anniversary to go off for a week of mountain climbing in the White Mountains, where we used to go annually with our children on vacation. Over the years, our physical endurance and capability has diminished so that we no longer climb the really tall peaks, and satisfied ourselves with the quite modest-in-height peaks, although accessing them requires great physical effort for people in their 70s.

Now such adventures, as we approach our 75th year, become more problematical, particularly as our two little companion dogs - the older of the two coming into her 19th year, reflect our own lack of capacity in achieving such time-consuming, energy-draining heights. But the area still beckons us for the beauty of the landscape, for the opportunity to hike those trails that are more modest in energy-output, and the sole mountain peak that we remain capable of ascending.

Oh yes; yesterday was our 56th wedding anniversary. We hugged and kissed and reminisced and got on with our daily concerns.

One of our neighbours, who lives two houses from ours, caught us as we were returning from our morning ravine walk, to ask for our advice. This was his problem: That morning as he awoke, he heard from outside his bedroom window an unusual sound, that of a duck quacking.

He thought little of it at the time other than that it was unusual. We do have ducks flying over from time to time, but seldom hear them, unlike the geese that fly over, calling from high above. And, in the early spring we occasionally see dabblers in the creek of the ravine up the street, passing through.

Later in the morning he chanced to look out his kitchen window and saw something in his in-ground pool. Out he went, his little cat following him, to discover quite the sight. Two unfeathered, very small brown ducklings were swimming in his pool. It was obvious they would be unable to make their way out of the pool on their own and they were self-protectively evasive. He shooed his cat back into the house. He put a floater into the pool, with some grass and breadcrumbs on it, and eventually the two ducklings made their way onto the floater, one of them nibbling at the grass and crumbs, the other not, before they left it again for the water.

He tried netting them. He looked on the Internet for advice. They were so small, so vulnerable and he felt stricken for them. He wondered how they had got into his pool, wondered where the mother duck was, wondered what he could do to preserve their lives.

He did manage, eventually, to capture the little things, and one of the pair looked in dire straits. He took the long drive out to the extreme west end of the city to deliver them to the Wild Bird Care Centre. There he was told that the ducklings couldn't be more than a week old. That they required the warmth of their mother's body, especially at night. They would be placed in an incubator, they told him; he could call back to ascertain their state, the following day, but not to hold out hope for the less perky of the two; it would not survive.

Our kitchen cook-stove and oven is about 22 years old. It has been a reliable device over the years. When we chose it at the appliance shop the model we selected wasn't the model that was delivered, but we accepted it anyway. What we ended up getting was what we wanted, but with the addition of an electric self-cleaning feature. When this feature is used, it takes up a great amount of power as the oven heats to a great degree in its self-cleaning function.

This makes it versatile and permits me to avoid the difficult job of oven-cleaning but it has its faults; the first of which is energy-consumption, the second is that twice, so far, one of its glass inserts in the door-window section has shattered.

I had a cookie-sheet full of oven-baked potato chips in the oven, and along with it a large fillet of wild Pacific salmon baking. When I opened the oven to turn over the chips so they could brown on both sides, I heard a loud tinkle as though a jug of ice-cubes had dropped on a hard surface, and looked incredulously at the oven door as it suddenly was no longer clear and smooth but glittered as it caught the light in a multitude of small crystal cubes. This broken portion was kept within the oven door, as there are three layers of glass and it was the innermost layer that had shattered.

Removing the oven door was simple enough. Purchasing a replacement piece of glass is expensive; a replacement is roughly eight inches by fourteen inches and it is almost $100. My husband was determined to fix the stove as soon as possible although we do have a few counter-top oven alternatives which we use almost exclusively in the really hot summer weather.

Disassembling the door with all its varied pieces, however, isn't simple. But finally it was done, the day following its malfunction and I was able to proceed as planned, using it again the following night. None of our appliances are as reliable as my husband's determination and ability to remedy their malfunctions.

It was a hot, ferocious wind. We thought surely it couldn't last. It would die down by the evening. It did not. It would go away overnight. Nor did it do that. It wouldn't last to the following day. Wrong again.

Despite the wind, my husband was determined to grill the turkey thighs we were having for dinner on the barbecue. It's a gas barbecue and the wind kept extinguishing the flame. I offered to do the turkey pieces indoors, but he said he'd simply protect the barbecue and he commenced to do just that. But it required that he check repeatedly to ensure it hadn't gone out again, which it did, on several occasions, before the thighs were properly done. So we had a late dinner that night.

While we were still at the dinner table there was a ring at the front door, setting off our alarm system; our apricot toy poodle began barking hysterically at the interruption. It was one of our neighbours who lives on the street behind ours. His wife, looking out her kitchen window was amazed to see one of our bedroom windows was lying askew inside its frame, jutting out over the deck. He'd come to alert us, good soul.

Up we went, to have a look at what the wind had managed to do ... along with our own carelessness in not being sufficiently alert to the potential of that occurring, since our windows crank open and on windy days they're susceptible, as has occurred before, to being flung about. Never like this, however. It was obvious that the hinges had been badly compromised and the danger was that the window, a very large one, might be hurtled under the continuing force of the wind, entirely off its track and onto the canopy covering the deck below.

My husband hurriedly began to unscrew the complex, tight-fitting hinges from their secure perch on the window frame, where they were also, of course, attached to the window itself, which kept it from complete collapse. His purpose was eventually attained and he was able to lift the window, now unsecured, into the bedroom. We are now without a central window in a series of three on that wall, while my husband tries to figure out how he'll ameliorate the situation, fix up the window and the frame with new hinges and get them to operate smoothly.

The screen still fits into the frame, and over that is the separately-hinged stained glass window that swings into the bedroom or which can be closed to cover the now-windowless window area, although not as snugly and airtight as the window itself. Sigh.

Yesterday's high winds have abated somewhat; today they're only gusting to 50 kmh. The wind velocity yesterday did one positive thing; it kept the mosquito population at bay, so that our daily ramble in the ravine was a little more pleasant than it's been the past several weeks. Mosquito larvae have had ample opportunity to develop in the many pools of rainwater scattered throughout the ravine, as a result of ongoing rain events that have made the past two months the rainiest on record.

The wind was ferociously driving through the woods, swaying tree tops, clacking them together, sounding at times like a steam locomotive intent on driving its way through our urban forest. Large pieces of bark kept falling off the trunks of long-dead trees, and branches and leaves kept tumbling down as we hiked along. It was a very hot and humid day, the wind relieving the heat and the humidity. Underfoot the ground is sodden, and packed with wet clay-muck; not at all pleasant. The dogwood shrubs are king now, they are boasting their white panicles of bloom everywhere in the ravine, alongside the pink and the white of wild honeysuckle.

When we arrived back home and ventured into the back garden we were astonished to see the extent of the destruction in our garden. I had to begin staking up geraniums, irises, and bellflowers. Hostas and small shrubs were blown lopsided. These were irritating but amendable; not so the plight of one of our apple trees completely shattered by the wind, broken off near the bottom of the trunk, and prostrate in mortal distress.

When we come down the stairs in the morning, we are able to look directly out into the front gardens from the front door. Years ago my husband had inserted a double-glazed window into the front door, and he had also installed a fully-glazed storm door over the front door. Enabling us the freedom to look out whenever we like without opening either of the doors.

In the winter months we can glance out the front doors and see the snow come tumbling down. From our dining room windows, we can also look out over another portion of the gardens.

We can assess how much wind there is by observing the action of the wind on the trees we had long ago planted astride the walkway to our front door, and the large pine standing directly before the house.

And at this time of year when the trees are in their flowering mode, we can stand before the door to watch another kind of motion taking place around the trees in bloom.

Bees head directly to the huge magenta blossoms of the magnolia, and those abundant white flowers that exuberantly cover the Sargenti crab trees. When the Japanese quince blossoms fully open a trifle later, the bees will migrate there, too.

As for other action that really excites us; we are visited year after year by hummingbirds whose iridescent green bodies glint in the sun, while their frantic wing-flaps stir the hanging branches of the caragana trees, both the upright and the pendulous, with their spring embarrassment of minuscule, irresistible-to-hummingbirds, yellow blooms.