So it's really folly to do certain spring things like put away jackets because the atmosphere has warmed up so nicely, and haul out summertime clothing because it's become too hot to wear long-sleeved shirts, in preparation for an uninterrupted continuation of balmy weather with cooling breezes and an overheated sun.

Even when we're out in the ravine walking through the forest and there is shady relief from the glare of the sun thanks to coniferous stands, when the temperature reaches up to 24C, and we haven't yet adjusted to casually accepting the complete turnabout in weather conditions, it seems hot. The wind and the sun are doing their best to dry up the remaining ponds of water sitting on the forest floor.

We haven't seen mosquitoes yet, but we have come across bumblebees and a tiny, lone blue (butterfly) flitting about. The Mourning Cloaks are still in the process of courtship, spiralling together in a whirlwind of dizzying delight in the prospect of mating and egg-laying, then expiring.

Some grackles have newly moved into the ravine; heard but as  yet unseen. And the same could be said of the barred owls whose night-time declarations of return also resound in the early morning hours to awaken grumpy residents living nearby.

Yesterday turned out not cool but quite cold in fact, at 5C, with a bellowing wind. It was that wind that whipped us swiftly from heat to cold the night before when the temperature descended to frost-levels.

Jackie and Jillie pay no mind; their focus is in sniffing about to determine what's been happening and who has been by that they identify through scent-sensitive familiarity. Their incessant nibbling on twigs has become an unstoppable habit. Occasionally they become ill as a result and then skip one or two meals while recovering from a type of diet they are not meant to consume. Our constant urging them to cease and desist accomplishes little. We don't want to put them on leash, preferring they have the freedom to get about wherever they wish, but it can have consequences.

Emerging red baneberry

Despite the cold atmosphere we came across a number of other trail trekkers out with their dogs. Which gives the dogs a grand opportunity to re-establish familiarity with one another in brief sporting competition runs. And then we part and continue our way through the forest, noting the new presence of plants like red baneberry and a growing proliferation of ferns among the bracken on the forest floor, so encouraged by the sun glancing through the still somewhat-bare canopy, and the copious rain that falls from time to time.

We've now seen the first of the lilies-of-the-valley in bloom, and our first sighting of a Jack-in-the-pulpit. Bouquets of violets are now blooming in yellows and mauves, delightful little flowers, perky and pleasant to come across, true harbingers of summer-to-come.