Of late, walks in the ravine require light jackets, it's been that cool, helped along by  a really brisk wind. We don't mind, it's very comfortable, much more so than when it's hot and the air is still and mosquitoes proliferate happily anticipating engorging themselves on our blood. The cool air and the wind have kept them nicely tamped down.

Now, with the progress of the season, the presence of Mourning Cloaks is past. And in their place are the more colourful Yellow Admirals, doing just what the Mourning Cloaks before them did; engage in their mating dances, lightly skipping on the air, spiralling gracefully about one another in their ageless ritual of procreation.

The wildflowers too have transited from the earlier offerings, now faded into obscurity and replaced by clover in bloom, and blackberry bushes preceding the raspberries and the thimbleberries -- in bloom but not in the eventual presentation of their fruit. Now is the time for buttercups to proliferate, and they are, along with cowvetch and wild geraniums with their tiny 'pinks'.

This is the second year we've noted that milkweed has begun to populate some areas beside the trails. Decades ago we saw milkweed plants in abundance on the other side of the ravine, not this side, and it appears they've spread. And if they do so sufficiently perhaps it will come to the notice of Monarchs whose presence will enrich the aesthetics of the ravine even more.

The forest has closed in nicely now that the canopy is full again, as is the understory and the forest floor itself. The generous fulsomeness of nature's bounty in full magnificent display.