A post-breakfast saunter around the gardens, front and back of the house, starts our summer day nicely. As long as it isn't steadily raining, our home exterior calls out its siren song to us to come and see how the gardens continue to prosper and bloom, anxious to play show-and-tell for us.

We're more than happy to oblige, including little Riley, content to amble after us as we peruse the day's offerings. The backyard is fully exposed to morning sun and we imagine we can discern the difference in maturity in the begonias we overwinter in the basement as they now reach their full bloom cycle in a myriad of colour, form and texture that teases our senses. 

The sweet-spicy fragrance of the trailing petunias with their generous array of blossoms, take our notice as does the pink blooms of the Cranesbill geraniums, in particular where they compete for notice with the purple clematis growing alongside them, in their peculiar shrub, not vine shape. And among them is the pushy chameleon plant with its white flowers. The bleeding hearts are just about finished their flowering at the very time that the Canterbury bells have taken to flower as have the delightful Carpathian bellflowers.

Our Stella d'Oro lilies are in full golden bloom, and the orange day lilies beginning theirs. Ladies Mantle is abloom with their nondescript sprays, and roses brighten the garden as few other flowering plants are able to. The Icelandic poppies' swift bloom is closing down, while the hostas are starting theirs. And now bergamot (Monarda) is beginning to bloom with their spectacular fragrance wafting on the air when touched gently, and tickseed too are opening their yellow flowerheads.

As we amble about, I pinch back spent blooms, pull up a few weeds here and there and we take in the full, generous beauty of a beloved garden.

Now that winter is long gone, a pleasant memory of it remains, if we bother to think about it at all. What returns my memory to winter is seeing a tiny chipmunk somehow finding the remainder of seeds and nuts that we had put out throughout the winter months for the local wildlife, still available for his delectation.

During that time when birds and small furry animals came to feed on what my husband kept replenished daily was either one or two bunnies, who knows how many in fact, but they would come around. We'd first noticed their presence when we became aware of rabbit pellets littering the snow around the backyard fence, and then noticed that the rabbits had been nibbling on the bark of the burning bush planted there. So we cut down some of the branches and left them littering the snow to make them more accessible to the rabbits.

Now, in the summertime backyard, we occasionally see tiny bunnies hopping about in the underbrush of the shrubs thickly packed toward the fence-end of the backyard. The raccoons that occasionally visited the porch where the seeds and nuts were displayed still come around on their nightly visits to our two compost bins. They are always respectful about it, never leaving a mess for us to clean up afterward; they simply move aside the lid and take their pick of whatever appeals to them.

As to the condition of our own domestic little bit of wildlife, Riley has been looking fairly disreputable and unkempt of late. Part of it is that at age 14 he has lost his puppy appearance and has become a stolid elderly dog whose hair no longer grows as plentifully and curly as it once did, in this way resembling my husband.

Time for some close attention to his toilette. It's slightly hotter today than yesterday's 30 degrees, and again we have full sun. But there's a canopy over the deck and a slight breeze, so Riley and I sat out on a lounge on the deck and for the first time in memory he lent himself comfortably to my task of trimming his hair. Usually he shudders and shivers in apprehension, and is visibly upset at the process; not this time.

And then, it was time for a bath. Another ritual that he fears and detests; he hates the water enveloping him, while Button used to revel in it. But bath him we did, and it was about time, since he hadn't been bathed in months. We thought it would be good for his skin, at the very least, and cool him off at the same time. Using an oatmeal and aloe puppy shampoo we set to, and this time he made it quite obvious that he was -- enjoying himself.

Life continues to be full of little surprises.

Neither yesterday nor today did we see anyone other than ourselves rambling through our neighbourhood forested ravine. The amble up the street from our house to the ravine entrance was a hot one, brief though it also is. The high for this day being 30 degrees, and with full, relentless sun modified by a gentle breeze, it is atmospherically oppressively hot.

Woodland Buttercups/Daisies

Most of our neighbours tend to shun the out-of-doors in any season. Where once it was common to see people walking through their neighbourhoods, mobility is now hugely dependent on the use of cars; people appear to have forgotten how to walk, why to walk to a destination, and the utility of using one's own bipedal capabilities to get from one point to another.

Granted, on a day with such guaranteed environmental physical discomfort, walking on pavement doesn't present as too appealing, but there is no one about seated in their gardens, enjoying the day in grateful shade, looking about, being neighbourly. But then, there rarely is. It is a long-gone phenomenon.

Mosquito Heaven

And while the stroll to the ravine entrance was uncomfortable, once within the all-embracing shade of the forest canopy, coolness prevailed. Mind, mosquitoes also prevail, and that's a nuisance. But it's all part of nature.

Anemone and Guest

As is the fact that the forest floor freshly inundated with an endless rainfall several days ago has left pools of standing water on the forest floor, making it resemble a wetland in some areas, more than a dry urban forest. Beloved of mosquitoes, the standing pools of water are no doubt teeming with their larvae.

Thimbleberry bloom

But there, at the edge of the trails, where the sun does manage to penetrate at some point during the day, grow all manner of wildflowers, from daisies to buttercups, flowering clover, bedding grasses with their divine fragrance which early settlers must have enjoyed as they settled down into mattresses stuffed with the grasses.

Bedding Grass/Clover

There is also cinquefoil, and trailing cowvetch, the last of the dogwood in bloom.

Cinquefoil

And joining them the exquisite blossoms of anemone, thimbleberry (purple raspberry), raspberry canes and for green effect, ferns in abundance.

Raspberry Canes

The bright red berries of baneberry glow brilliantly when caught by stray shafts of sun penetrating the canopy.

Red Baneberry Berries

The opportunity to take a daily stroll in the woods, clambering uphill and down in our circuit, circumnavigating the neighbourhood adds pleasure and leisure to our days. And there's little doubt it adds years to our lives.

Built and established in 1876, it is an architecturally proud and elderly house of education, the high school that my granddaughter attended. She lives, as it happens herself, in an (since modernized and built upon) old log schoolhouse that was established to give initial elementary education to local children in 1864, located a 20 minute drive from Arnprior. Which is why she attended Arnprior District High School, an institute of secondary education that is proud of its tradition of providing a sound and distinctive education to generations upon generations of young people in this farming community.

"Red Velvet" Student performance group

And that is where we were, last night, at the 2014 Commencement ceremony for graduating grade 12 students. It was a packed house, with about 160 fresh-faced 18-year-old lads and lasses graduating high school. The venue was the gymnasium, larger than the auditorium, it seems, to accommodate the audience of parents, grandparents, invited guests and presenters along with staff, packed into that limited but sufficient space that was thankfully well air conditioned, to witness the ceremonial proceedings.

Graduating students were ceremoniously garbed in the usual graduation costume of solemn black robes covering the carefully chosen dresses and suits the graduates had chosen to mark their special day. They were similarly ceremoniously piped in by the traditional strains of an ear-shattering bagpiper, emphasizing the original prevailing culture, as they filed quietly and proudly toward two choirs of chairs set up on either side of the podium from whence the proceedings began to present themselves to the waiting audience of proud families and friends.

Graduating Honouree presentation

This was no event geared toward the impatient and those for whom such time-consuming niceties are anathema. Nor was it even representative of any audience-geared event orchestrated for celebrity culture. But it was an event honouring dignity and purpose in life and those attending were hushed in the intensity of their attention to unfolding traditional introductions, and loud in their applause when each of the graduates was called to the stage to be presented with their certificate and congratulated, some posing ostentatiously for photographs.

The first hour was tolerable for those prepared to sit out the proceedings in respect of the occasion and the honourees. The second slightly less so, as the various awards representing a myriad of causes and entities were ticked off and the presenters presented while the recipients gratefully accepted the acknowledgements of their community integrated activities. They ranged from the Arnprior Aerospace Technology award, to the Fish & Game Club Awards, to Community Safety Partnership Committee Awards, Coffee house awards, Royal Canadian Legion scholarships, Arnprior Optimist Club, Funeral Home award, Knights of Columbus, Town of Arnprior, Ontario Power Generation, and 4H clubs...and all manner of various memorial awards; the list seemed endless, on the north side of 75 individual scholarships and awards.

Fairly short shrift was made, on the other hand with the announcement of the Ontario Scholars, those students who had distinguished themselves through the achievement of having attained excellent academic records and whose end-of-semester grades demonstrated their commitment to their ongoing education and their future professions.

Staff entertainment group

With each introduction of the graduates a brief acknowledgement was voiced indicating their future; roughly 60% of the graduates were moving on to university or college, in disciplines as various as law, engineering, medicine, science, technology and the trades. For some of the graduates it was made evident that their choices included going directly on to work in the trades, farming, the service industry, and some had already secured their future employment.

Best friends

Of the total graduating body, 38 were announced as Ontario Scholars, our granddaughter and her closest friends among that list.

'Way, 'way back when we were really young, the parents of three very young children, he was already in the habit of wearing hats when the occasion warranted. Not just toques for a Canadian winter, but wool fedoras with some dash to them, with an overcoat of wool and good cut, even when we barely managed to pay all our bills on a modest salary, when the first mortgage monthly on our modest little bungalow was $40, and the second mortgage far less. And we still struggled to pay the weekly dairy costs for milk, eggs and cheese delivered by the dairy itself and deposited each morning in response to a note left by me in the little doored cubby built into the side of the house at the side door.

I can recall his going to a haberdashery that was located in a small shop downtown many years ago to acquire one of his later cotton-mode fedoras. It would take many years of constant use but they would inevitably wear out and have to be replaced. The last such hat I can recall him acquiring was at Lake Placid in a shop that seemed to stock just about anything, yet geared to the tourist trade, when we had gone there for some hiking in the Adirondacks one spring. There was one other he bought, at a second-hand shop, a leather hat made in Australia, weatherproofed and used on many occasions, but a tad too large.

Currently he was faced with a dilemma. Where to go to replace his tired, torn and worn old hats. We thought hieing ourselves down to Byward Market seemed a good bet, at Irving Rivers' famous store. Sure, there were hats aplenty, even bowlers and top hats but of the fedoras there were several, though made of felt, not cotton. In any event, as happens so often when he looks for a hat and there are some to be had, there's one size only. It's large and nothing else, while he takes a small; he has a neat cranium to house his big brain.

Finally, I urged upon him a trip to a nearby shop we'd never before been to. It's called the Apple Saddlery. A strange, warehouse-appearing place located off the beaten track as it were, with its parking lot an old-style gravel and dirt affair.  In its vast interior we discovered rows and rows of hats of every description and among them hats that appealed to my husband's sense of utility and style; above all in various sizes, so he was able to find three hats of different types to fit him.

And we came away satisfied customers.

Early to bed, early to rise may make one healthy and wise but sometimes the unexpected intervenes and plans go awry. So it was for us the morning we meant to leave early from our rented cottage in New Hampshire. When we woke at six, it was raining, no not merely raining, but pelting furiously.

Taking Riley out before bed at an early-for-us ten the night before we realized it was raining, but hadn't the foggiest idea it would rain all night and on into the morning hours. So it seems it never quite stopped. Raining far too heavily to pack all our stuff into the truck. So, we waited. And we waited.

First sign of abatement saw us pleading with Riley on the sodden turf to do his daily duty. And my husband crammed all our stuff, as only he is capable of engineering, into the vehicle, and we finally left, at the belated hour of nine. Cold, sodden, hugely windy, the aggressive wind swiped at us braving the elements, thankful this kind of dirty day had held off until then, presenting no challenges to our days of hiking.

There were beds of rain-enhanced purple lupins on the Kancamagus median, perkily bidding us adieu. Mist rose steadily from the mountain slopes; Mount Lafayette, that formidable peak shrouded in low-lying cloud, and Eagle's Cliff barely to be seen. On through New Hampshire to Vermont, and a steady driving rain accompanying us all the way.

We were whisked right through by a Canada Border Agent; they always appreciate my husband's careful listing of purchases, dates, prices, and appended receipts. There was a very apt lull in the rain as we pulled into the Quebec border rest stop. Though wet, cold and windy, it was a relief to stretch our legs and seat ourselves under one of the two canopied picnic tables to eat our bananas, have our tea, coffee and sandwiches which Riley agreed he would allow us to share with him, the greedy little beggar.

As we made off again, the rain resumed. How's that for timing, as though we had a direct line to Nature herself. It was an exceedingly soggy drive, the number of trucks on the highway staggering, throwing up white spray, reducing visibility markedly. As for driving through Montreal; pure gridlock at 2:30 in the afternoon on a Thursday. Patience is never more a virtue than waiting for traffic to move on a busy highway through a metropolis, in teeming rain.

We arrived home in due time, anxiety on my part to see  how the garden had fared, what we'd missed, while a genial neighbour had looked after things in our brief absence.

Last full day before packing to return home, our week away in the White Mountains done for another spring. Our host is tractor-mowing the large tract of land nicely grassed in wide sweeps before his cottages. I've always delighted in exchanging gardening stories with him. He is an avid gardener like his father, a man from whom his son inherits his geniality. A frugal and avid gardener, he separates his hostas and grows both perennials and annuals from seed.

Apart from co-managing this enterprise with his wife, they're both gainfully employed in other ways, she sewing exquisitely designed draperies for her local clients, and occasionally working seasonally at nearby tourist sites, and he as a long-time employee of one of the better-known, privately-owned mountain-tourist sites.

Bunchberry/dogwood

The cottage we most often rent from them for our brief stays is the last in a long line, the furthest removed from the main house and where most of the other accommodation is clustered. It backs hard onto a forested slope, and the back of the cottage tends to be naturally dimly-lit as a result, while the front is exposed to full sunlight. We enjoy its more remote location.

The fresh, green fragrance of newly-mowed grass permeates the atmosphere beautifully. The sky has not yet greeted the cloud cover the weather station assured might bring some isolated sprinkles.  Sun blazing, it seems fairly hot as we set out driving past the Mad River, back to the site we visit most often, at the Waterville Valley. The parking lot is empty but for one other vehicle besides our own. Its owner could be anywhere along the network of trails that radiate out from Smarts Brook.

We plan to repeat the three-mile circuit, to go at it from the opposite end this time, but change our minds. We start out again at the stone gorge end with its gorgeous vistas of rampaging mountain stream hurtling over boulders close to the Mad River. We note new Ladies Slippers in bloom, their delicate pink-toned lanterns fresh and lovely. Among them, with similar spear-like foliage, sprays of yellow-starred straw lilies.

We notice also the presence of sumacs among the proliferation of dogwood, of a type quite unlike what we're most familiar with in our own natural geography at home. Leaving behind the forest of hemlock, spruce, pine and oak, we find blooming bunchberry among the areas of micro-ponds and wetland, where boggy ferns, raspberry canes, sorrel and strawberry feel at home. Mica glints back from flakes dispersed among the gravel littering the trail.

A young man passes us cheerfully riding a mountain bike and we wonder how he manages at some of the steep, rocky, boggy places on the trail; a challenge that youth enjoys, no doubt. A young woman with a leashed large dog, mixed breed with some hound in the admixture, a dark brindle coat, passes in the opposite direction and they are the sole people whom we come across in the several hours of our trekking cycle.

The toad is well camouflaged

But we do glimpse a small design-textured snake, likely a garter, sidling through the underbrush of the forest floor near a boggy area, no doubt searching for newts or frogs. We also see a toad a while later, possibly with an eye to avoid becoming a snake's meal.

From our delightful re-introduction to the visual watery splendour of the Sabbaday Falls, and its relentless sound impact, we thought of extending the afternoon excursion along the Kancamagus highway. It had been hot and sticky-humid when we left the cottage, but at the elevation we gained along the highway under rain-threatening skies the atmosphere now felt downright cool, breezy, decidedly more comfortable with light jackets in order. Rainproof seemed a good idea.

My husband had discovered for us a new site, one we hadn't before encountered. Driving on another half hour we approached the Rocky Gorge site and close to it, the Falls Pond. Over an immeasurable period of time the Swift River in this part of the White Mountain range had scoured out a cleft through a wide area of exposed rock within the forest to create a river run and waterfall as the river streamed on its timeless trajectory.

There, in a light rain, we strode about on the congregation of flattened white boulders, to enjoy the scenery, marvel at its geology and take photographs. From there we ambled over to a rustic bridge taking us forward to the Sawyer Pond, a glittering little mountain lake bordered by pines, hemlock, yellow birch and spruce. Along the path leading to the bridge we had seen Dutchman's Breeches, buttercups and lilies-of-the-valley and grasses with tiny white star-like blossoms.

Closer to the lake grew straw lilies and we saw as well a sole pink Ladies Slipper. We soon accessed a trail called variously the Boulder Loop trail and the Lovequest trail, about a mile in distance, and really beautiful. It looped the lake, the trail generous in width, criss-crossed with tree roots, and softly cushioned with spruce and hemlock needles. The needle-dense orange-coloured path created a perfect colour foil for the fresh appeal of new hardwood foliage along the trail and marching up the slope of the surrounding foothills.

We could see, through the screen of trees whose canopy shielded us from the rain, the surface skin of the pond lightly dimpling in the rain. There's a twilight consistency to forest interiors that somehow illuminates the atmosphere with a strange, muted brightness.

But glancing over at what could be glimpsed of the lake, even under rainy skies, an evanescent brightness prevailed over the lake; perhaps exaggerated by the dimness of the forest light. But it too provided a mysterious, and quite beautiful contrast in mood and colouration.

Even though the forest was dim with overcast, that peculiar light seemed suspended within its confines while the lake, despite the rain, emitted light back to the overcast sky.

The morning dawned hot and sunny, hard on the evening's rain, a deluge that lasted the night, cooling down the atmosphere. We drove the Kancamagus Highway past Lincoln under gathering clouds impaling themselves on the mountain tops.

Stopping at the Pemigewasset Overlook we left the truck to approach closer to the spectacular view of the valley below where a wreck of a forest blowdown caught our attention, along with the incomparable beauty of the mountains beyond, trailing white vapour rising over the mountains, cloud-draped along the summits.

It took less than ten seconds in total to realize the all-encompassing horror of being enveloped in a flitting dark, rapacious fog of blackflies, a bloodthirsty horde descending on us from every direction, our arms acting as though of their own volition, futilely, like windmills gone berserk.

All the while feeling those wretched marauders infiltrating each millimetre space and minute faction of an opening to gain entry into our clothing, piercing our shrinking skin with their tiny, formidable mandibles. Leaping away in a panic of escape, we managed to take a few photographs nonetheless, and drove on, still feverishly attempting to extricate the minuscule warriors from ears, neck, scalp and under our shirts, our skin calling out for rescue from the red-hot, searing itch the devils leave behind within the gap of raw flesh they accomplish.

Out came the insect repellent when we reached Sabbaday Falls, where cold running water presents as more prime breeding ground. This year appears to have given perfect season to breeding ferocious blackflies; they're ubiquitous wherever we go, but nowhere else were they as markedly present and avaricious as at the Overlook.

We entered the forested trail alongside the babbling Sabbaday brook, mood restored to happy mode. Taken, as always by the trail's welcoming beauty. Yellow birch is king there, alongside pine and hemlock, dogwood, maple seedlings and Moose maple understory with ferns and blueberry bushes abundant on the forest floor. The pounding fury of the falls, the green pool below, swirling mesmerizingly, the waters' rushing downstream trajectory, the granite walls enclosing the falls, the bridging network creating an access scaffolding for visitors are all mind-bogglingly fascinating.

(Though we do recall a time many years previously, when the scaffolding stairway network had not yet been built, and we were just as enthralled by the spectacle of the falls then, as we were on latter occasions.)

The tumult of the falling, foaming, rushing water, its brilliant splashing plumes and flash, even under dense cloud cover remind of the power and fascination of water, endlessly over time etching bowls into permeable granite with its eddying ferocity.