In Canada the debate continues about the need in a civil, open, equal-rights democracy for everyone's face to be clearly shown when undertaking matters of gravity and law, such as swearing-in citizenship ceremonies, or more mundane matters like obtaining a driver's license. Most Canadians take offense at the very thought of coming across another person on the street who masks their face; it is, in a society like Canada's, a sign of hostility, an unwillingness to face another human being.

We receive decipherable signals when we come across other people and in passing, glance at their faces; some are hospitable to exchanges of recognition that we are all alike as human beings in the merest flicker of their eyes, others briefly pause to exchange a greeting, while others still, oblivious to the presence of others, simply walk on and that's a choice people make. The choice to mask the face, leaving only the eyes to evade contact with others is offensive in our society.

And the government stepped in to make it obligatory that people uncover their faces when they are involved in obtaining services where identification is required such as in a voting booth, or receiving public welfare, in step with Canada's social cultural conventions. Needless to say, the issue revolves around some Muslim women tending to obscure their womanly features with the use of a chador, a burqa or a niqab in the belief that this is required of them as pious Muslim women enjoined by custom to be modest in their demeanor and who carry things through to making themselves as invisible as possible.

The only thing is that by completely obscuring their features and conspicuously covering themselves, they are anything but invisible, but rather stand out glaringly in a crowd.

There's that and there's the obverse, a completely polarizing issue of young women insisting they are feminists and as such have the right to be visible in a most disconcerting manner. Call them exhibitionists, egotists, narcissists, they're young and lively, infused with enthusiasm and prepared to bare their bosoms in a declaration of war against social convention where men and women do present themselves in public in generally modest clothing.

Alysha Brilla,left, and Tameera Mohamed — along with a third sister, Nadia — say they never intended to cause a stir when they rode topless for 20-25 minutes through residential streets on a hot day.

But this is the issue that has cropped up in the last few days when a Waterloo Region trio of sisters decided on a hot and humid evening they would remove their shirts and bras to catch whatever cooling breezes they could in a three-hour bicycle jaunt. Their appearance startled residents and brought them to the attention of a police officer who recommended they restore their shirts to their upper bodies, and they refused, pointing out that it is perfectly within the law to go topless in Ontario, after a successful court challenge that took place several years ago.

He persisted, ordering them to cover up, and they resisted, claiming there was no need for them to do so. "He said, 'Ladies, you're going to need to put on some shirts'," recounted Tameera Mohamed who with her sisters Alysha and Nadia were the trio who took offence at being pulled over and admonished by an officer of the law.

"We're all feminists and we're all aware of our rights and are pretty opinionated in that regard and so we thought, 'That was ridiculous, he had no reason to stop us'. Either he lied [claiming complaints had been received and there were children in the area/and-or not being aware that what they were doing was perfectly legal] or he doesn't know, and both of those are problems, so we need to go to the police station and report this", said Alysha.

To support their contention and drive public opinion, the sisters have organized a Bare With Us "top freedom rally" for Waterloo to take place on Saturday. Claiming that they're doing their part in fighting sexualization of women's bodies. Some believe, on the other hand, that their antics are in fact further sexualizing women's bodies, and they're not wrong.

"Showing private areas in public and calling for 'normalizing' our response to flashing -- I think that's really fighting the wrong battle", Wendy Shalit, author of A Return to Modesty: Discovering the Lost Virtue, commented from the U.S.

That's quite the leap from hiding one's identity as a female from public glare, and revealing one's intimate body parts on the other end of the spectrum, and both emanating from a source identified with the Prophet Mohammad; his namesakes flouting public mores and flirtatiously (!) flaunting their private endowments, and his worshipful followers screening their gender identity from public view.

Imagine, two poodle puppies ignorant of the fact that their breed loves water. They were bred to be water dogs. They were bred as hunters, as well. Our two little puppies hunt assiduously for all manner of woody detritus to nibble on; bits of branches, pine cones, the roots and stems and foliage of an especially yummy favourite: violets, though anything will do, it seems.

Introducing them to the pleasures of being in water isn't one of their favourite experiences. Out on hikes in the woods they display no interest whatever in the streams we come across. And placing them in a bathtub of tepid water for a bath represents a terrifying assault on their sensibilities.

Nevertheless, we decided that they could use a bath in this overwhelming heat and humidity. And so we set about to do just that, the day before yesterday. I toyed with the idea of putting them both at the same time in the bathtub, but soon realized that was fairly unworkable when first Jackie was placed in the tub and I began to lather him with shampoo and he stood rigidly in fear, then frantically attempted to climb over my arms to be free of the water. Coping with two such little creatures at the same time would have been a neat trick.

Jackie was soon nicely lathered and rinsed off; no point leaving him in the tub any longer than necessary and prolonging his agony. While my husband dried Jackie's haircoat, it was Jillie's turn and as soon as we had enough water, in she went. Her reaction was even more dramatic than her brother's. I'd thought that since this wasn't by any means the first bath they'd ever had, they would react more reasonably, and I was wrong.

While I was bathing Jackie, Jillie was at my elbow watching what was happening and clearly concerned for her brother's welfare. Her calls to him were not meant to be reassuring, but took on an anguished tone of hysterical despair on his behalf. Similarly, when it was Jillie's turn to be shampooed, Jackie, by then nicely dried off, poked incessantly between me and the tub to take his turn expressing his dismay over Jillie's dreadful predicament.

Jillie, for her part, was far more persistent and forceful in attempting to rescue herself from the cruelty that I was imposing upon her, poor innocent little tyke. So, after all was said and done and both were nicely dried off, their hair fluffy and wispy-soft to the touch, they celebrated by dashing madly about in all directions, saved from the evil we'd imposed upon those poor defenceless little creatures.

These suffocatingly hot, oppressively humid days we return from our ravine walks utterly drenched. Because the days have been oven-heated and damply unpleasant, the merest breeze is celebrated. And the knowledge that the green living canopy of the woodlands offers shelter from the brazenly burning sun, speaks sensibly to us of the merits of embarking on our daily walks in the morning, not leaving them to the afternoon.

Today, for example, the high will clock in at 34 degrees. Yesterday the temperature rose to 33.9 degrees, so likely we'll surpass 34 today. After breakfast, and after I'd done a little bit of early gardening, just tidying things up, we went off to the ravine with Jack and Jill. Jill lately has been 'hiding' when she hears us ask wouldn't she like a ravine walk? Once she's in there trotting along things don't seem so awful to her.

Jack never seems to mind anything, and it's why we refer to him as Smilin' Jack. It's not just his attitude, but also his facial expressions, quite markedly happy-go-lucky. Their personalities are that different.

Venturing out into the ravine early means that when we return I then pay attention to matters that I would normally have looked after before jaunting off. It just calls for a little flexibility. Even though we go off in the morning for our walk though, the heat has already built up with a sticky, hot atmosphere; there's just no evading it other than remaining in an air-conditioned environment. And that's no kind of life.

What surprises us is that more people seem to be seeking out the relatively green cool of the ravine than we would normally see. Yesterday we came across people we'd never seen before, enjoying a ravine walk; not one of the regulars we've become accustomed to seeing over the years. There was a young family with three children, all boys and looking fairly grim-faced; possibly over having been yanked by parental decree away from computer games.

And then there was a group of a dozen boys about eight to ten years of age in the company of two older teens, shepherding them about on bicycles. Representing, no doubt, a day camp. None of those boys looked ecstatic to be out in nature, and all of them found it beyond difficult to acknowledge a cheery greeting, other than the two older ones. We did come across one of our old friends and that kind of meeting is always good for a protracted halt-and-chat that mosquitoes eventually interrupted.

Today we came across other old friends, one of whom we haven't seen in years, though we more frequently come across her son who walks his own two terriers. She told us that one of the terriers, a middling-sized, hairy little fellow had been attacked in the ravine a few days earlier by a bull mastiff. We know the offending dog and we know its owner, neither of whom were threatening in any way, but then brief and unexpected things happen often. The little terrier had some stitches at the back of his neck and seems fine now. The owner of the bull mastiff will likely take to walking him with a leash for awhile.

We were glad to see that the public works department of the municipality has finally turned its attention to ameliorating the trails that had been impacted so deleteriously last winter by the earth movers and tracked shovels used in the reconstruction of the bridges. One man has been assigned, with his small, maneuverable tracked shovel to put down stone dust on the affected trails.

Now, no more huge pitted areas of muck requiring avoidance. All the ruts have been levelled and filled in. And the stone dust put over the too-heavy gravel pieces that tend to move underfoot is a solution to potential slides and accidents that the municipality sees itself concerned with in averting the possibility of having to address lawsuits.

Over the years we have acquired quite a collection of garden pots, urns, and other associated garden containers. Each one represents a miniature aspect of the garden, to us. Each one is planted anew in spring with bulbs kept overwintered in our basement, or fresh plants that we buy at gardening centres.

Sometimes I take snippets of vines or ground covers from the rock garden beside the house to help fill in the containers and give them some additional focus.

We rarely plant annuals in our garden beds. And the reason for that is simply because there is no room for them. In the garden beds and borders that we maintain we have planted ornamental trees, shrubs, and perennials.

They give shape, texture and colour to the garden, presenting a variety of living green tableaus to greet our eyes in shifting presentations depending on the time of observation, because they are always in flux, those micro-scenic areas that we so value.

Since perennials bloom only when it is their time to do so; early spring, spring, early summer, summer, late summer and fall, the colour they present is sporadic and ephemeral, in a succession of floral tributes to the seasons.

Obviously, the only way to enjoy continuous displays of colour in a garden is to have a combination of perennials and annuals, each complementing the other. In view of the fact that we have little room to spare for annuals in the garden beds, we have accommodated that fact by adding those miniature gardens, if you will, contained in pots and urns.

Those containers in and of themselves render an architectural element to the gardens, for each of the pots and urns presents as unique, both in their form and texture and in the living flora that they contain flourishing in their own singular habitat, as it were.

Taken all together, garden pots, garden beds and borders and the garden hardscape which my husband built himself, our gardens comprise the culmination of our efforts to maintain and enjoy the beauty of an all-too-short summer in a northern land more familiar with the overwhelming presence of winter.

Dog strangulation vine

In Bilberry Creek ravine the summer moves on with one wave after another of wildflowers and ripening fruit presenting. We're well aware that these little evolving views of life ongoing escape the notice of most people. To begin with in comparison to the population in the community close to the ravine, very few people ever venture onto the trails to enjoy the quiet and peace of the landscape where an urban environment is suddenly transformed to reflect nature in its more authentically raw appearance.

We have accustomed ourselves to considering each of our forays into the ravine, as familiar as the routes have become over the years, as opportunities to view each turn in the trail as a unique and to us fascinating manifestation of natural seasonal progress.

Already, birds that visit the area as seasonal migrants are beginning to return south in early preparation for the onset of fall and eventually winter. Spring and summer are months of the year that are so transitorily swift in their passage, we're always taken by surprise tinged with real regret.

Jewel weed

Now, the apples on the wild apple trees are ripening and becoming sweeter. Over the years we've plucked them sporadically and taste-tested them. Now with Jack and Jill having familiarized themselves with what they consider to be edible treats to be had in the ravine, little bits of apple are given them where we encounter the trees. Jill in particular stops and waits expectantly, looking up eagerly at my husband, the giver-of-rare-treats.

On those parts of the trail meandering through the upper portions of the ravine, cherries have ripened on the wild cherry trees, goldenrod is beginning to flower, the staghorn sumacs are beginning to colour the landscape, the sunflowers are in full bloom, and the jewel weed colonizing the wet parts of the ravine have begun their bloom.

There's always something to see and appreciate at this mid-summer season, from an unusual shelf fungus, and the sudden pop-up mushroom colonies, to blooming yarrow, Queen Anne's lace, fleabane, and the bright red berries of red baneberry.

And to note that the appearance several years back of dog strangulation vine that once seemed such a pleasant novelty has morphed into a real infestation. The vines make their gradual appearance in ever-increasing numbers and they twine themselves swiftly around the stalks of shrubs and flower-bearing plants, up tree trunks and wherever they can find purchase to transform nature's garden into a chaotic-looking mess, their sheer weight on a plant, unlike cowvetch, bringing the plant prostrate to the ground.

What to do on a muggy overcast day threatening rain? Why, garden of course. By afternoon the temperature was supposed to rise to 26 degrees, which would be the coolest day-time high for the coming week at least, so we thought we'd meander off to one of our favourite plant nurseries after our ravine walk.

And there we walked among row after row of tempting new cultivars and old garden standbys alike. Although on first entering the spacious outdoor arena hosting the garden plants at Ritchie's Feed and Seed we had looked closely at some of the two-gallon perennials that were being advertised for 40% off at this point in the season, we thought we'd walk through the entire panoply of bright colourful offerings before settling on any we would welcome to our garden.

When contemplating additions to the garden the impulsive acquisitive streak within mandates that greed will overcome good sense and caution. Our gardens are already stuffed with plants, adding any more will simply translate in months and years to come to one plant inevitably crowding into the space allotted to another. But that's rational thinking and my personal response to gardening is solely emotional; I want them and I want them all, to tease and please my eye.

And my husband isn't averse to indulging my gardening muse, so we tend to go off and peruse the offerings and reach a mutually satisfactory conclusion that no, we haven't much room, and what's the point of simply introducing new plants that will challenge the territory of existing ones, but who knows, they might decide to get along nicely? And so we indulge.

Yesterday we bought a European buglos whose foliage I find quite lovely. We also bought two new cultivars of coneflower with lovely colouration. And yet another hosta, to 'fill in' a place in the garden recently vacated by a very tired, scrawny and sprawling globe cedar that appeared to outlive its contentment in the garden.

And so, on our return I set about tidying up that part of the garden that has hosted those lovely pink California poppies which obligingly reseed themselves. I pull out the plants, snip off the seed heads and toss them back onto the soil, knowing they'll resort to reproducing themselves in due time. In the meantime, freeing up additional space, which is where the buglos was given a home.

We found nooks and crannies needing a punch of new colour for the coneflowers, and inserted the new hosta which my husband chose; I wanted a crinkle-leafed one, but acceded to his choice this time; and it was he who did the digging and planting while I went about filling a compost bag with plant detritus. It is soul-satisfying work. I've managed to infect my husband over the years with my enthusiasm for gardening.

And though there were sprinkles of rain when we'd been out at Ritchie's, the rain held off until after we had completed our pleasant tasks and then thunder began rolling in and with it torrential rain. Which, as far as we're concerned represented splendid opportunity and timing.

Several years ago while walking in the ravine we saw an unusual-looking beetle on a tree, and strolled over to have a better look. We realized there were several of the beetles. They were unlike any beetles we could recall ever having seen before. We didn't know what they were, but they seemed not to mind our close presence and we soon realized why; they were busy copulating. Seems it was their season to breed.

We could get as close to them as we wished and they took no notice. So I took a few photographs of the beetles, and we were none the wiser as to what they were. They were round, fat little things and, we thought, quite attractive with their hard-shell iridescent-bronze bodies.

And then, a month or so ago we came across them again. This time we discovered a few of the beetles on one of our rose bushes. My husband carefully plucked them off the rose leafs, and took them over to the compost bin where all the kitchen and garden waste was nicely cooking away in the early summer warmth. They must have thought they'd died and gone to beetle-heaven.

This morning, as we were perambulating around the gardens as we so often do, there again, were several of the little beetles back on the rose bush; the same rose bush, as it happens. Again, my husband took care to do them no harm, and transferred these beetles to the compost bin. And it occurred to him that they might be Japanese beetles. So when we got back in the house I had a look on Google, and sure enough that's what they were.

Moreover, they're classified as pests, biological threats with an omnivorous appetite. They have a propensity to skeletonize foliage; nibbling on the green and leaving only the veins of the leaves. Which would effectively eventually, if enough of this grazing went on uninterrupted, kill whatever plant they were munching on.

So perhaps saving their bacon wasn't such a good idea, much less placing them in the compost bin where they could munch away to their black little hearts' content, and satiated, go on about breeding and exponentially multiplying. I now will have gruesome nightmares of our gardens festooned with millions of these avaricious little thugs, destroying all our hard work and pleasure in viewing what we've achieved with nature's help.

Sometimes 'nature's help' goes to the creatures that she designed to destroy, unfortunately.

Every day has its little dramatic incidents. This morning's could have been a heartbreaker. But it did turn out to be a lesson in the intelligence of other animals around us. The perseverance and courage of one little bird saved another. Had that tiny creature, a song sparrow, not persisted in his efforts to guide his mate to freedom, tragedy would have been imminent and we would have been heartbroken to discover an inert little corpse in our garage.

We've had other incidents with wildlife managing to get themselves into trouble. On several occasions a robin one time and a squirrel another, tumbled down our chimney. We'd had encounters of a similar nature where we were able to gently extract unfortunate little creatures before they flew or fled in panic through the house, to carry them to the freedom of the great outdoors. The robin, however, flew into the two-story space of the living room and it took awhile for it to discover that if it flew in the right direction it could access freedom through our open front door. The squirrel needed to be trapped, and it was difficult, both to see its fear and concern that it wouldn't be injured, but my husband managed to give it its freedom as well.

In this instance, a little song sparrow had somehow been curious or unaware enough to fly into the garage at a time when one of the doors were open. Days earlier my husband imagined he heard a faint rustle, then thought nothing of it. This morning, though, he realized that faint sound must have been the bird he saw flying about the garage. He opened both doors. The bird settled on the horizontal plateau that the opened garage doors presented, seemingly unaware that right below the doors were two great yawning spaces open to freedom.

I watched as the little bird flew from the front to the back of the garage, then returned once again to perch on top of the open doors. Meanwhile, a frantic little song sparrow, evidently its mate, was attempting to gain the trapped bird's attention. The free bird would venture cautiously to the entrance of the garage, lift itself a few feet into the air, and flutter outside. But its companion, trapped above in its self-imposed difficulty, wasn't able to see its mate's actions, though the free bird attempted time and again to lead the other to freedom.

This went on for some time, until finally the little male flew past the threshhold of the garage which my husband had vacated, driving the vehicles into the driveway to give them both more room to see and to manoeuvre. Flying halfway into the garage and lifting himself to a greater height, the little female finally appeared to understand the message, and she flew down finally from the top of the garage, to exit the open doors.

She flew to the bottom of the closest of our garden urns, appearing to be dazzled by her sudden exposure to full light, while her mate rested above, until she was sufficiently rejuvenated to be able to fly off with him. She was without doubt hungry and thirsty and exhausted.

And we were jubilant on their behalf.

Bilberry Creek Ravine

Last year, beginning in mid-fall until the onset of winter when municipal work was being done in the ravine, working on the demolition of the existing bridges and the building of replacements, we spent a lot, if not most of our time for many months avoiding our part of the Bilberry Creek Ravine, and going instead across des Epinettes, local main street, to the other part of the ravine. 

We found it a good enough replacement, and had few complaints about it, just considering ourselves fortunate that we had an alternate destination for our daily walks in the woods. In the late fall we had been informed by some people we came across walking through the area that someone had dumped goldfish into the stream at that point where the creek spills out. We looked for their presence, but never did succeed in seeing any.       

And last week we found out why. Another person whom we’ve seen walking his two rescue dogs in the ravine the past few years and with whom we’ve become quite friendly told us that he has the goldfish. He rescued, over a period of several months, no fewer than 80 fish from the stream. There were a few, he said, he had been unable to net, and he thought they’d die over-winter. Their sizes ranged from four inches to twenty inches; some of them were quite large. He didn’t think they’d find enough to eat, let alone be able to withstand the cold. The creek, after all, is quite shallow and without adequate depth to protect them they’d be exposed and simply freeze to death.

 

            Evidently he keeps tropical fish. And he has quite a bit of equipment, including a 100-gallon tank, and smaller tanks as well, all of which because of their size and their weight water-filled, he keeps in his basement. He was able to find ‘homes’ for about 20 of the fish. Some people decided to take up his offer and adopt them. The others, about 60, he has, though he would like to farm them out somewhere. 

He thought that in all likelihood someone with a garden pond full of fish just wanted to rid themselves of the fish and dumped them in the stream. While the weather was good they managed to survive, and to grow. He ‘rescued’ them because his wife loves animals – they have three rescue cats, as well as their two dogs, and he works from home so he’s able to tend to their needs constantly.

Over the years of meal preparation I've baked endless variations and combinations of the eternal quiche egg-pie. Recently, looking through some recipes my search for something palatable and unusual for a bit of a change led me to a recipe that was called 'Garlicky Swiss Chard Pie'. So I looked at the ingredients and thought that's a little different and thought I'd give it a try.

The recipe gave an alternative for Swiss chard, recommending kale. When I went shopping the bunches of Swiss chard were so large they put me off that as an option and I chose instead smaller fresh bunches of kale.

And then I proceeded to put together this quiche which wasn't called a quiche, consisting of:

2 tbsp. olive oil                                2 tbsp. butter
half red onion, chopped                   salt and freshly ground pepper
3 cloves garlic, minced                    1 large bunch Swiss chard  (for 1 cup chopped stems,
5 eggs                                                              plus 4 cups leaves chopped)
1 cup milk                                        1/2 cup mozzarella cheese, grated
1/2 cup feta cheese, crumbled          One 9-inch unbaked pie shell

1. Preheat oven to 350.    2. Heat olive oil and butter in a skillet over medium-high to saute onion until translucent, just beginning to caramelize, about 20 minutes; season onion with salt and pepper. 3. Add garlic and chopped Swiss chard stems with onion; saute about 5 minutes; cover pan and cook until stems begin to soften, about 5 minutes..   4. Add chopped Swiss chard leaves and saute again until leaves are completely wilted, another 5 to ten minutes. Set aside.   5. In large bowl whisk eggs. Heat milk just until teaming, about 2 minute in microwave, add in a thin stream whisking hot milk into eggs.   6. Pour egg mixture into pie crust, and spoon chard mixture evenly into pie. Sprinkle top with cheeses.   7. Bake quiche for 30 to 40 minutes until browned on top and set in middle. Cool for ten minutes before serving.

I substituted kale for Swiss chard, used one large garlic clove, and a full, very small cooking onion. Since I wanted to make a smaller pie for two people, I used three eggs, and halved the milk. For the cheese I used a combination of mozzarella and sharp cheddar shredded, and I placed half of the cheese directly on the bottom of the pie shell before scattering the cooked onion-garlic-kale mixture over, and then the rest of the grated cheese, sprinkling small bits of blue cheese over before pouring the milk-egg mixture over all, and proceeded to bake the pie.

This is par for the course for me; I take cooking/baking ideas and simply alter them to suit my own preferences. This quiche was left in the oven somewhat longer than I meant it to, so the top really was brown; we'd had a telephone call that needed to be tended to and couldn't break it off, interfering with dinner. We'd already eaten a small salad as an appetizer, so I served the quiche a bit later than I meant to, which had no bearing on its taste. Which was pungently garlicky and extremely pleasant both in texture and in taste combination. We concluded the meal with fresh blueberries.

My husband complimented me on the piecrust, claiming I had mastered the perfect crust for all occasions. He enjoyed the scent of the pie and the taste-consistency of its interior but took great care to pick out every vestige of kale that he could manage to separate. He is not readily adaptable to vegetables he hasn't had an intimate acquaintance with over the years, and kale is not one of his favourites, but then neither is Swiss chard. He recommended the pie be repeated, using spinach.

I sighed.

Hikes in woodland areas now reveal emerging patterns of change in the appearance of seasonal wildflowers. There are still buttercups and daisies in evidence, along with flowering cowvetch and clovers, fleabane and cinquefoil.

cinquefoil

fleabane

Strawberries have long since ripened, and raspberries are beginning to, but this is the season for the thimbleberry plants that have popped up from the forest floor with their distinctive maple-leaf-type foliage, to finally flower with bright pink blooms.

In the Bilberry Creek ravine, there isn't much meadow rue, save for a very small patch beside one of the creek tributaries, and its flowering is now in decline, but still evident. Now, goldenrod is beginning to make its distinctive entrance, but not yet in flower. Newly colonized patches of milkweed are yet to thrust into flower but they're approaching that time. Everything seems much earlier this year than in years past.

Queen Anne's lace

Yarrow

Queen Anne's Lace has made its surprisingly early entrance to the flowering brigade. And yarrow too is now in flower, bearing slight resemblance to the former, but for its tiny white flower clusters. And the stately sunflower plants have been growing progressively taller and taller, thanks to the ongoing rain events that have made this a very wet summer. Now, their flowerheads are emerging, bright yellow, echoing the sun. The American bittersweet vines that we've seen in seasons past are now in full thrust, winding their way around helpful tree trunks.

Sunflowers

Although usually spring and fall, as a result of seasonal rain events, generally host fungi of various forms and colours, we came across a patch of Indian Pipe a few days back. And we do see from time to time, some fungal offerings that draw attention. There's no lack of attention-grabbing flora in the ravine at any time during this growing season.

Indian Pipe

Jack and Jill, rambling along before us find no end of curiosities that draw their attention. Mostly, however not their admiration at recognizing beauty, as we do. They're concentrating on what for them appears edible, and since it's almost everything, to our annoyance, it's almost a relief that they've developed a far healthier appetite for the small apples that have been falling prematurely from the woodland's wild apple trees.