It happens without fail. Spring comes to our  hemisphere and although the landscape looks dry and drab nature rescues us from that visual dilemma with ample rain and sun encouraging all the plant life that has lain dormant under the soil to awaken and begin the gradual process of asserting their presence. And each time we see something new erupting out of the soil it's a re-acquaintance with an old friend.

By the time the forest floor is covered with bracken and the early wildflowers have finished their bloom we're blase about it all. Though still enthusiastic about all the other specimens which in their proper seasonal turn, make their presence, delighting us all over again.

Yesterday there was hardly anyone to be seen in the ravine, except for our friend, a personable young man whose mother we  had known for decades, and who we seldom now see in the ravine with her little dog. It's her son, a local fireman, whom we come across frequently. With him his two little terriers, a white and a calico-coated, grown familiar with us over the years, eliciting excited yips of friendship from Jackie and Jillie.

With his experience of injuries he tried, the young man whom both of us think so highly of, to persuade us that I should see a doctor and get my hand X-rayed. The swelling remains pretty obvious and several days after my awful fall in the ravine I cannot fully use that hand. But I found last night that I could keyboard, getting past the awkwardness and the aches, and I've gradually found increasing use of that hand. I was able, this morning, to bake chocolate cupcakes and make a bread dough for tomorrow evening's pizza and pre-prepare dinner, putting a chicken soup on to cook.

Wild strawberries are beginning to bloom in the ravine, their tiny, pretty white flowers rivalling the presence of the woodland violets, proliferating everywhere we look. The baneberry is also now in flower, not very distinguished, just a light ruffle of white to turn later into red berries. But more trilliums are coming up and flowering, and as well, our favourites, Jack-in-the-Pulpits. The wild apple trees are beginning to set their flower buds. Foamflower has sent up its delicate white floral sprays.

What more could we ask for?