It's April, after all, nature's spring-cleaning month, when we can expect ample rain to encourage warmer atmospheres, in turn inciting flowers to begin to erupt out of the warming soil. The sunny days we also celebrate come sandwiched between rainy days, and today, yet again, is one of those rainy, dull days. But yesterday we had the opposite, and decided, after our ravine walk, to go downtown to Byward Market for magazines and cheese.

The drive to the market along the Western Parkway is an adventure in itself, you never know what you can see in the fields adjacent to the highway; red foxes, deer on occasion, rare though they are, and yesterday a grey coyote, taking its time, ambling along a field that will soon be seeded with a crop. The coyote likely looking to rustle up mice, rabbits, moles ... who knows? His sighting was a surprise for us, and a pleasant one to know we're sharing our environment with other creatures of the Earth.

The urban forest is coming to life. Looking at it in the aggregate, you can see a flush of new life stirring. The willows will be the first with their yellowish, pale-green flush, now on the cusp of arriving. But the poplars, already sporting fuzzy catkins aren't far behind, nor the maples whose red buds will soon be in full evidence. The Ottawa River is swollen with snow meltwater. Everywhere we look the elements of spring are in place, finally.

Byward Market reflects that, too, all the more so on a sunny, windy but cool day. A day that teases people's instincts to get out in the fresh air and enjoy the feeling of freedom and anticipation of warmer days. Cafes in the market are not yet preparing their outdoor patios but it won't be long. There's a lot of construction going on in the downtown area, and the market area is no exception.

It's a colourful place, teeming with people of every description, young, old, hale, and otherwise; people who look like those you can see anywhere else in public places, and those who distinguish themselves by a personal style that calls attention to an obvious rejection of the boring ordinary, an embrace of the outlandishly extravagant in garb, colour and attitude.

All a reflection of the multi-faceted expression of human nature. Emulating nature herself in her infinitesimally vibrant and distinct categories of life. Like the flamboyant, strutting wild turkey we passed returning home on the parkway who obligingly posed for my camera, setting aside for the moment his search for a companionable hen in the mating process of spring calling.

When we passed the RCMP musical ride paddocks there were none of the beautiful, black horses to be seen. In their place were hundreds of Canada geese, industriously pecking at the bountiful leavings on the grassy meadows, and alternately blissing out, warming themselves in the sun after their long migration north, themselves harbingers of spring's arrival.