Once again yesterday, as we did the day before, we decided to lengthen our ravine walk. To do that on this occasion, once we were through our usual circuit of an hour, we had to emerge from the ravine, then cross a major traffic corridor to approach the opposite end of the ravine to where we had been on Friday. We hadn't been there in some time. It was where we regularly took little Riley when the bridges on our part of the ravine were being replaced and work crews with heavy machinery disrupted the trails and the peaceful tranquility of the woods.

The portion we crossed into is quite a bit different than ours. The forest there isn't as deep and lengthy. Consequently the trail is a single one and not all that long. But because it is different it is also interesting. For one thing, the tributary of the creek though considerably narrower is far more attractive; it is entirely lined with limestone toward its entrance to the forest. We don't know whether that's natural or had been done by the hand of man, as it were, well before the time we were ever introduced to the area. The approach to the forest is also very attractively parklike.

Gnarled old spruce

Many years ago when our granddaughter was young and we provided her weekday daycare, we took her regularly to a playground adjacent that part of the ravine, accessed at the foot of our street. On occasion we would take her through that part of the ravine which approached yet another, larger playground with more sophisticated playground equipment.

Beech (foreground) Cedars

Yesterday we were just enjoying a midsummer day's ramble in the woods. There are some notable old trees in that portion of the ravine; also cedars where there are few in ours where the conifers are pine, spruce and fir, and on the hillsides native yew. Where we were yesterday there are also venerable old maples and spruce, very respectably elderly, gnarled and huge. Though we have ample of the same as well as beech, birch, hawthorn, sumac, black cherry, wild apple and ironwood, which have their presence there, also.

Giant old Maple (interior) Birch (right forefront)

More sun penetrates the area there since the forest canopy is not as large. And there is a crowded corridor of thistles which at this time of year coming into blooming colour can be attractive, but in the fall nuisances when their dried flowers become the thistles that stick stubbornly to the fur and hair of dogs, and peoples' socks and pants.

There is also present there far more thimbleberry bushes than are evident where we usually ramble. And what's more surprising is that we found quite a few ripe berries. Surprising since in our part of the ravine the flowering hasn't been that long in process and it will be quite a while before they produce edible fruit. Those growing in abundance where we were yesterday are far more advanced.

A pleasant conclusion to our day's woodland walk. For us, at any event. Though we fed our puppies a few modest handfuls of berries which they love, it hardly seemed as though they enjoyed the ambiance of the unfamiliar territory. They would have forgotten our having taken them there on the rare occasion many months previously. They seemed to tug at the leash as though urging us to return to familiar places, unreasonable as that seems.