Years ago we often used to come across the sight of wild rabbits bouncing about on a large field that we once believed was part of the construction-protected ravine, and on adjacent trails when we frequented those trails as part of a longer circuit we would take in the ravined forest so close by our home. Those rabbit sightings are now extremely rare.

Caused, of course, by the fact that the large field is no longer in its natural state, but has been transformed to a residential street of bungalows, in keeping with an effort to reduce the visual impact of houses so close to a natural area, but not an effort to maintain wildlife habitat. What we took to be part of the municipally-protected forest area was obviously in private hands.

On the rare occasions we still decide to elongate our circuit and include that portion, we're always taken by the fact that some of the flora to be seen there are quite different than what we're more accustomed to enjoying in the potion of the ravine, more extensive and certainly larger and more thickly forested, than that part, far closer to our home.

There are some lovely old pine giants that hadn't evidently been striking enough in their maturity to be logged out when this part of the country was being logged and settled a hundred years ago and more, and they're to be found in their majestic presence in various parts of the geology we're so fortunate to live within.

But there are also long-established old grape vines, the common fox grape, or vitis labrusca, that grow so emphatically on that side of the ravine. The thick, woody stem with its strong twining habit grows to impressive proportions. Its fruit must have been very useful to the early settlers in the area. And it most definitely finds the clay soil in this geography amenable to its foundational biological requirements.

So it's a treat, from time to time, to go along to that area and to poke about visually to see what's new.

We did come across several clumps of tall flowering plants that I took from a distance to be milkweed in flower, but closer inspection revealed thick clusters of bright pink almost-aster-like flowers with aster-like foliage but definitely not the typical fall asters we seen coming into early bloom this year.