There are small, delightful discoveries to be made every day on our way through the forest trails in the ravine. The winter wonderland we'd grown so accustomed to greeting daily is now gone, the last portions of trails thick with ice are almost now all melted, and about time too, moving into the month of May.

Yesterday when we took our two little dogs out for their regular ravine walk the temperature was a balmy 18C, with light winds and the sun even decided to part the dark clouds occasionally. Which was why our eyes fell on a sole bright and sunny Coltsfoot in flower, the first to be yet seen on the forest floor. Had the day been heavily overcast with no hint of sun that shy little flower would have closed and we would have bypassed it.

Because it was such a pleasant day, Jackie and Jillie wore nothing but their natural coats. The residual snow and ice remaining radiated cold it's true, but that was more than compensated for by the mild temperature prevailing above, so they were unrestrained and no doubt happy about that though there are some matters they keep to themselves rather than confide everything in us. They're now wearing far lighter harnesses than those we use during the cold winter months.

There are the first vestiges of the many plants that inhabit the forest floor manifesting their presence. Strawberry foliage is always the first to appear, and it's no different this year. We can see woodland violet leaves as well as those of trout lilies thrusting out of the damp rich soil of the forest, enriched by generations of well-rotted woody and leafy detritus, the humus of the forest.

Jackie and Jillie are mindful of puddles and prefer to go around them, or leap over them, just as we do. There will be more of these ever-widening puddles resembling little lakes as the days progress because we're in a very wet weather system meant to linger for at least a few days.

In the windstorm that swept through the forest a few weeks ago some trees had come down, several across the trails, but a day later they had been cut up and hauled off the trails. There is one house that we pass on our circuit, located very close to the forest edge, and it had the misfortune of experiencing a tall, mature pine growing at one of the entrances to the ravine adjacent their house, break off at close to soil level, and fall over their fence and into their backyard. It missed their house by not much more than a foot or so. The impact of its fall must have been substantial, both in sound and movement.

There it remains. Municipal crews most certainly must have been alerted. True, across the city maintenance crews had been busy removing trees that had fallen onto people's properties from public areas, but it is still surprising that these householders have this large pine prostrate in their backyard. They cannot be very pleased about the situation.