We might have known our flirtation with summer-in-May would be brief, but we're always taken by surprise; in our case hope springs eternal. Friday night gave us cooler temperatures and brisk winds that brought in an entirely other weather system. And when we woke on Saturday we had high humidity courtesy of a sky packed with dark-streaked clouds promising us an interesting day. There was some morning rain, and then it stopped.

Thimbleberry

And we embarked earlier than usual for our daily ravine ramble. I went equipped with a plastic bag, gardening gloves, a small spade and intentions. The day before I had taken several white trilliums from a ravine hillside, their secret hideaway that no one other than the forest denizens could see, only the dark red ones visible from the trails. And yesterday my intention was to transport some trout lilies to our garden. To be taken from among well-colonized areas where a few would not be missed.

Where mosquitoes tormented us the day before when it was really hot and muggy, none did yesterday, although to dig up the few lilies I intended to make off with did not necessitate moving off the beaten path, as it were; they were directly alongside the trails, plenty of them, prepared to lend themselves to my plunder. And so I plundered; not many, several little clumps. And then immediately on return home, they were planted in an area of the garden that would not otherwise be disturbed. So now it will be a waiting game, to see after a season or two whether they will take and prosper as the foamflower did many years ago.

The sun tantalized us occasionally with its presence. The wind assured that any mosquitoes that harboured an inclination to feast on us, were deterred. Because of their presence, fewer people are now out and about on the trails. We noted that the deep mauve-purple violets are now beginning to bloom. They're far more lavishly aesthetic than the tiny yellow ones. It's the white ones that tend to come up and bloom in our gardens. And the wild strawberries are beginning their bloom, with their tiny, perfect white flowers. We also saw that thimbleberry is beginning to make its presence.

Jack-in-the-Pulpit

And then, we saw it. Unexpectedly, since we thought it would be yet another week or so before the Jacks began to come up. When they do erupt, it's amazingly fast. Where yesterday there was no evidence of them and our expectations weren't very high we'd see any yet, there it was, a single Jack-in-the-Pulpit in the very same place where we'd seen it, first of the crop, last year. So others will also begin to show themselves with their lovely purple-striped hoods. Those that I had transplanted to our garden a dozen years ago have not yet erupted.

By the time we returned home, rain had re-started. And it was in a light rain that I selected the place that would be dedicated in the hope there will result the emergence of a colony of trout lilies, over time.