It was so cool and windy yesterday we needed wind-breaking, warm jackets for our ravine walk. And in the evening we were thankful to have the fireplace blazing away, warming up the family room, as we relaxed after dinner. Although there was an all-day threat of rain, we had only a light sprinkle in the morning. With all this rain, we're spared, at the very least, from having to water anything. Even the garden pots are bright and perky, their soil nice and damp.

The ravine, needless to say, is somewhat more than damp. But we had no rain today and the sun comes out occasionally and it's warmer than yesterday, though still with a wind brisk enough to keep mosquitoes away, and we needed only very light jackets.

All this rain has been a bonus for everything green in the ravine, little doubt about that. Everything is growing and maturing at a phenomenal rate. The bracken in the underbrush is fresh and bright and has achieved quite a height. New sumacs are popping up everywhere; they reach their climax of age and growth quite quickly; not a long-lived understory tree at all.

And the dogwoods are sending out their compound flowers in a frenzy of bloom. Also, we're finally seeing fungal growth, like shelf fungus in particular, growing  from decaying  tree trunks. Their patterns are beautiful, as though copying faithfully the pattern of the wood itself; perhaps not surprising since that's their existential source of energy.

Come to think of it, what we're experiencing altogether is perfect hiking weather. In the forest there's a perpetual dusky appearance given the full foliage of the forest canopy is resistant to full sun penetration, a kind of twilight atmosphere prevailing that is both wistful and beautiful. It's the kind of light, like what pervades after a heavy rain, where colours seem to intensify, the verdant atmosphere taking on a strange, living glow, captivating and mysterious.