Doesn't take much to make us feel like ingrates. We suffer through the seemingly endless inclemency of freezing temperatures, ice and ferocious winds all winter, continue to plaintively complain that spring is tardy and winter has no intention of leaving, and then, though this happens invariably year after year, when we're hit with a few days of warm, really warm -- as in 'hot' -- weather, we wonder what hit us.

This week built up to such a series of days that can be described accurately as uncomfortably 'hot'. Tuesday reached into 30C territory and Wednesday did the same, so uncomfortably hot that even a lovely breeze wafting cooler air toward us offered scant relief. We should have taken a water bottle with us into the ravine, but forgot to. Both days we came across Sheila and Barry walking their three high-powered border collies, and Sheila generously offered Jackie and Jillie water.

Barry is out daily now, actually twice a day, going through the ravine with Sheila and their dogs, only a month and a bit away from surgery that placed a 'cage' over part of his vertebrae, two rods and lots of screws. He can stand and walk now without the excruciating pain he was experiencing before surgery. This man, an ultra-marathoner by inclination, one of those triathletes who never wants to miss a physical challenge, has been through quite a series of surgeries and he has always bounced back. We should call him the India-rubber man.

Yesterday we came across the first of the Serviceberry trees in bloom, the earliest of the trees to bear flowers, a mist of tiny white blooms before the tree becomes fully leafed-out. We also found that the pink trillium whose presence we noted last spring, is also in bloom, a lovely blush-pink. There's a grouping of three trilliums very close together, in fact looking indivisible; two bloom pink, the other purple.

We also noticed that the Thimbleberry shrubs have begun to poke out of the forest floor. Over summer they put out an enormous amount of foliage and height, to produce lovely bright pink flowers of a quite dark hue, in turn becoming luscious bright pink berries similar to raspberries (of the same genus actually) and just as delicious.

When we arrived back home after our afternoon spin on the forest trails I decided I'd remain outdoors for a while, despite the heat, took up some gardening tools and began puttering about in the garden. There were some garden containers that hadn't been emptied of their soil in preparation for spring's soil replacement and planting of summer flowers, so I set about doing that. After an hour or so, I felt more than prepared to call it a day, put away the gardening tools and cool off in the house.