Despite that the gardens look so bleak and unappealing in early spring, the ritual has begun of my peering intently at the newly-snow-and-ice-released soil, dark with its damp condition, looking for any signs of emerging life. I had hoped that the newest transplants from the ravine last summer, wild ginger, would reappear and begin to thrive in our garden, but it's a faint hope. I shouldn't complain, given the wild success of transplanting foamflower and Jack-in-the-Pulpits and trilliums.

The spears of tulip foliage began to emerge a week ago, green, tinged with red, and that's always exciting. Those tiny spring flowers whose name I've long forgotten from bulbs planted at some dim point in the garden's history have sent out their delicate spears, and in the front garden their emerging purple flowerheads so alike that of tiny irises are awaiting sun to fully open.

Beside the garden sheds the curly branches of the corkscrew hazel, planted about fifteen years ago, haven't yet put out their catkins, but I guess it won't be long. That poor tree has been tormented for the last three or four years by a seasonal influx of Japanese beetles, hungry for the foliage and in their vast numbers creating real green chaos.

In the ravine yesterday afternoon we saw the emerging green foliage -- minuscule as yet but unmistakable -- of honeysuckle shrubs, so things are steadily moving along. As the sheets of snow and ice recede -- and it's all picking up pace -- the soil of the forest floor is being steadily released from the icy grip of frost and before long we'll see those old familiar little triangular streaked leafs of trout lilies and eventually the shy little yellow heads of the lilies themselves.

Jackie and Jillie were all excited yesterday about coming across two of their little pals, terriers they've known all their (admittedly short) lives, the companions of a young man we've known for years, who informed us that the hip cancer of the older of the two (15 years) has returned and he doesn't want to put him through chemotherapy again. He's had the little fellow since he was only eleven years old himself, sharing the years together since then, but he said he's trying to be realistic.

Knowing nothing of all of this, the still-sprightly little guy and his companion along with Jackie and Jillie crowded around my husband for the dispensation of edibles, happy in the moment, and I suppose that's about all we can hope for and look forward to and appreciate at certain uncertain times in our lives.

They forged on and so did we, on a day whose mood seemed to match this new information, since it was cold at 5C, with a bit of a nasty wind and heavily overcast. Whereas Jackie and Jillie have been able to get out without having to wear anything against the cold, yesterday their light-weight coats were needed for comfort.

The day before, we had seen a pair of Mallards steaming along down in the meltwater-swollen creek, when we looked down from the height above. Yesterday, coming over the last of the bridges that ford the creek we looked for them again, but nowhere were they to be seen. What we did see was a small black-and-white hairy woodpecker. We'd actually seen him the day before, but he'd quickly flown off. Woodpeckers too have returned from the boreal forest to spend their time in our forest to nest.

Once again the little woodpecker was there, but instead of pecking away at the tree he'd been fastened to yesterday, he was on the bank of the creek opposite where we stood, and hammering delicately away at a hole in the soil, oblivious of our presence, and quite preoccupied.

When we eventually finished our circuit on the forest trails for the day and returned to street level out of the ravine, as we walked down the street toward our house, we could see the lumpy, furry form of one of the raccoons hurrying across the street from the ravine toward the porch to reach his afternoon snack post.