It's beginning to feel a lot like summer. Summer will give us hotter days, but the past week has averaged well above 20C, and with clear skies, that gets fairly warm. Enough so that dogs out on the trails in the ravine are panting pretty good, some of the larger ones staying off-trail, preferring to make their way through the denser underbrush where they're guaranteed deeper shade.

Aside from which, just as we're pestered by the presence of mosquitoes, so are they. We're better equipped to stop them from their predations than other animals are, however. The forest floor still hasn't absorbed all the moisture that fell days earlier, and great pools of rainwater still remain, as perfect breeding grounds for still-water-loving mosquitoes.

This is a 6-1/2-month-old Great Dane/Bull-Mastiff already weighing 90 lbs; great personality.

On the other hand, when we stroll briskly along, the likelihood of being bitten is reduced. Yet, when we come across other trail walkers the tendency is to stop and chat, however briefly, making both us and the dogs susceptible to being stealthily inundated with mosquitoes we hardly know are there until they make their characteristic penetrating proboscis plunge and then we feel it.

Everyone's in a good mood regardless, grateful for such wonderful weather, after the long, prolonged days of cold in early spring. And it's nothing short of wonderful to see the wildflowers, to have bees and beetles rocket past us, and to spot those gracefully beautiful dragonflies hovering close by.

Every now and again we stop to admire something new; a woody-looking cluster of shelf fungi, a patch of violets (and they're everywhere, large and small, white, yellow and purple and mauve), eye-catching bouquets of nature's generosity. We're also seeing more Jack-in-the-Pulpits showing up and they're quite special.

Later today we're informed there'll be thunderstorms, and episodic rain events for the next three or four days, all good news for growing things.