Lately we've been doing quite a bit of bushwhacking in the ravine. To bypass trails that have been so deleteriously impacted by the tracked earth movers that they're beyond nasty, particularly when they're in an after-rain condition. The ruts are too deep for normally casual walking, and the hazards represented by large pieces of granite for ankle-turning too threatening at times. So, we bypass those areas if and when we can by clambering down into the ravine without the use of the trails.

Bushwhacking itself requires caution since the hills are fairly steep and they're covered with detritus from seasons past. We've got to weave between the trees, and keep a sharp eye out for raised roots and fallen trunks hidden in the leaf-mass on the forest floor. If it's recently rained add slippery to that. And now, there's the added bonus of bloodthirsty mosquitoes and blackflies lunging at us from every perspective. An absolute delight.

No point complaining, our daily rambles in the Bilberry Creek ravine are just too important to us not to embark on them. It does help that Jack and Jill have become much better on the leash, particularly Jill. She's an absolute little sweetheart going through the ravine, interested in everything around her, careful to stay on the trail, and not given to pulling the least bit.

Jack, on the other hand, is a little pill. Because the workers are in there now and using those large steam shovels and earth pushers the noise, when we're in close proximity is deafening, and it alarms both little dogs no end. They become quite difficult to manage, lunging toward the sound of the machines, as though they mean to attack them.

And bushwhacking during this afternoon's walk offered up a surprise for us. We came across a section of the hillsides that hosted white trilliums. In all our years of trail-walking in the ravine we've only once before come across white trilliums, two of them, and they were anomalies. Pulling ourselves uphill, I saw two white trilliums close by and when I pointed them out to my husband, he looked a little further and lo and behold there was a veritable patch of them. The gardener in me wants to return, to dig up one of the trilliums and transfer it to our garden.

My brother, a botanist, turned his entire garden in Halifax into a naturalized one, hosting only native specimens. We compete with one another, each of us boasting that our Jack-in-the-Pulpits are larger; what does he know; mine are giants, his puny by comparison. It's something I keep to myself, since I have no intention of hurting his feelings or his professional pride.

Wink-wink...