Another notice stuffed into our porch mailbox, from the municipality to update us on the conditions in the Bilberry Creek Ravine forest impacting on the street we live on. Warning us to be alert around heavy construction machinery that will be in use throughout this month in an attempt to rectify and prevent further erosion on the hill behind the street, leading into the ravine.

The notice stressed that only the three houses whose residents have been evacuated, directly backing on the ravine where the slump has come closest, are in potential peril. But residents are warned that construction work may impact on their properties, and to take precautionary measures such as for insurance purposes, to take an inspection of their premises with photographs, should some damage ensue. That would affect only the homes built alongside the ravine, not those on the opposite side of the street, where we live.

Still, it's worrying, and one feels dreadfully sorry for our neighbours who must be feeling under great stress. Our neighbours, top of the street at the entrance to the ravine, have some reason for concern, having intended to put their house up for sale for reasons having nothing whatever to do with the ravine slump but everything to do with the fact that as new empty-nesters they want to move to a smaller place closer to where they work, and certainly now the prospect of selling will be impacted deleteriously by what has been occurring there.

When we entered  the ravine yesterday we came across a large tractor-dozer and beyond it, a group of construction workers whom Jackie and Jillie remonstrated with for entering their ravine without their express permission. They gave us a bit of a run-down on what will be happening. So some of the side trails closest to where the work of constructing a sizeable six-foot culvert, lining the area with heavy gravel in the hope that this will stop the Leda clay from dissolving when saturated, will be temporarily fenced off.

They had earlier replaced the temporary fence closing off the top of the hill where another side-trail paralleling the street, with a much taller semi-permanent construction fence with warnings of trespass danger. So off we went on our usual ravine ramble, finding the trails just as muddy as the day before, since on our return the skies had opened up again to inundate the area further, but it was a pleasant walk. A few more of the trilliums have opened, injecting some brilliant colour into the otherwise drab spring landscape.

And when we came to the closed-off portion, unnecessarily shunting us away from the completion of our usual circuit, we simply bush-whacked a bit to get beyond it.