During the winter months our two little dogs seek out the comfort of the sun as it glows into the breakfast room where one of their beds is located, and there they settle themselves in the afternoon when that life-giving orb has moved across the sky to attain the perfect position to allow them to warm themselves and enjoy the gentle touch of sunrays for as long as they glance through the patio doors.

Now that spring has finally arrived, with moderating temperatures, particularly in the micro-climate of our back yard, they ask repeatedly to go out to splay themselves out comfortably on the deck, caressed by the warming sun, until, given their black haircoats, they become too hot and shove aside the screen door to admit themselves back into the house.

As they react so do we, becoming increasingly anxious to get outside to enjoy the atmosphere of release and relief, wanting to work in the garden, to take ourselves off for walks in the forest.We hear the owls at night now, their melancholy call spiriting through the ravine and wafting into our backyard. The little nighthawk that has taken to sleeping on the rail of our porch continues to visit and snuggle itself into the corner to spend the night, its little brown body hunched in the comfort of rest.

Yesterday afternoon's ravine ramble was just perfect, not quite as hot as the day before, and the sun glancing in and out of clouds most of the day, with a lovely, cooling breeze. A haze of green is now visible across the understory of the forest, not yet in evidence among the deciduous trees, but foliage springing up tenderly and with leaps and bounds daily in shrubs like dogwood and honeysuckle and willows.

We were on the lookout for opened trilliums. I'm also keen to see the opened flowers of a clump of trilliums that bloomed a lovely soft-blush pink last year. But though I was certain that by the weekend we'd see the blooms in all their open colour, that wasn't what happened. Until we finally came across two disparate trilliums, fully open, their carmine blooms nodding head down toward the forest floor but unmistakably bright enough to catch our eyes.