Bilberry Creek ravine, Orleans

Heat absent humidity, with a nice brisk breeze represents today's weather emphasis. Heat as in a projected 33 degrees. So, best to do as we did this morning, deciding to exit the house and go along on our woodland ramble right after breakfast. The night time temperature didn't fall beyond 24 degrees last night, so it certainly won't take long for the heat to build up.

But when we entered the ravine and were enclosed by the leafy forest, it was relief from the heat felt out on the street walking to the ravine entrance. There, it was cool and the breeze penetrated for a very nice effect. There are areas in the ravine where the sun manages to send its warming rays through the leafy canopy, but those areas are a moving target; fully exposed at one point, in the shade as the sun moves majestically across the sky.

Daisies, cowvetch, buttercups, bedding grasses

As we draw ever closer to official summer, the change in the micro landscape of the forest floor is also interesting to note. Daisies are now in abundance alongside buttercups and clover and cowvetch. The blackberry flowers have already faded and the nascent berries can be identified just as has happened with the cherry trees.

Bedding Grass

There is the occasional maturing clump of wild geranium, a new proliferation of milkweed, not yet close to flowering, and the bedding grasses have finally begun to flower, sending up their exquisite fragrance.

Thimbleberry

Finally as well, the thimbleberries are starting to flower, their bright pink, fair-sized blooms seen quite a distance as one approaches. We've now seen the first of the hawkweed, which means that we should soon also be sighting ripe wild strawberries, tiny and sweet.

Hawkweed

And the fleabane also are in bloom. Trailing lotus blooms now at the edge of the ravine. Nature's abundance of colour, texture, fruiting bodies, a cornucopia of eye delights.

Fleabane

Trailing Lotus