Today it was the odd appearance of a family, blanket spread under an old pine tree off the trail, parents and two children enjoying a noon meal together. And they happened to have situated themselves close to the very spot where we spotted the fox making its entrance. This marks the first time in the decades we've roamed through the woods that we've seen a picnic being enjoyed in the dense confines of the forest.
They're fortunate, and so are we, that the hordes of mosquitoes that had plagued us a month ago along with black flies are no longer in evidence. We've been able to hike through the woods mosquito-free amazingly, this past several weeks, and we're very much appreciative of that. Yet it is also curious, since as a result of the incessant rains -- now briefly halted -- the forest floor has been saturated beyond its absorptive capacity and continues to host pools of stagnant rainwater, the perfect breeding place for mosquitoes.
We've now had three consecutive days of full sunshine. The environment is just beginning to dry out. Before more rain arrives on Friday, according to the forecast. The work of remediation of the ravine hillsides behind our street remains ongoing. Ongoing too is the sound and fury of the industrial machinery that has been pounding steel poles and sheets of steel into the forest floor to bedrock in an effort to ensure that further slumps don't occur.
People who never breach the confines of the ravine have been making the effort to venture slightly beyond the ravine entrance to try to observe how the work is progressing. That same work that has been shaking their houses, and creating strange, loud sounds. Some people are even curious enough to descend the long hill into the ravine proper, to view at closer range from a more convenient perspective how the work is progressing.
A peculiar type of entertainment on hot summer days, one imagines.
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