Despite that we woke somewhat groggy feeling, an hour and a half before we usually wake and get up in the morning, yesterday turned into one of those decidedly perfect days. It helped, enormously, that we woke to a sunny morning, the house aglow from the sun's penetration lighting up the rooms at the front of the house as though all the lights in the world glowed in them.

That good feeling lasted the entire day, though by evening the sky had clouded over and rain fell heavily. The thing of it is, we wanted the rain to come along, then and there, at that very time. Because we were dissatisfied with the grass seed that the contractor working for Bell Canada had put down to correct the mess they'd left digging up our front lawn. So few of their grass seeds had sprouted that my husband set about laying down fresh soil over the entire area, then used freshly-bought grass seed liberally over the new layer of garden soil. So the rain was welcome.

We had gone out much earlier in the day as we're wont to do, with Jackie and Jillie, heading for the ravine, feeling pretty carefree with no jackets needed since the temperature went to 22C with a light breeze and full sun. Both the sun and the wind, we hoped, would help dry up some of the forest trails and the wind, we also hoped, would keep mosquitoes away. And our hopes were realized.

Woodland violets are now everywhere in bloom in the forest, their bright yellows and mauves and purples dotting the forest floor. The tiny yellow violets are always the first to bloom, and there's the occasional minuscule white violets. The mauve are no more dominant in size than are the yellow, but when the purple violets finally bloom, their blossoms are larger, more perfectly shaped and shade-perfect and have become our favourites.

Jackie and Jillie have now become so accustomed to the pools of muck on the trails sometimes they don't even bother avoiding or leaping over them, but steam right through. Even so, we're no longer faced with the nuisance of washing their tiny feet interminable times to free them of the black muck once we're home. Now, a quick swipe of a damp sponge does the trick; the muck no longer clings to their pads.

On our return home it was time, I felt, to pay a little attention to the garden. To see which of the garden pots wanted to be watered, to cut back the dead stalks on the climbing roses, to help some of the clematis vines find purchase, to trim some of the ornamental conifers of their sun-burned needles. To merely claim to be pleased with how the garden is restoring itself after a long, cold winter, is to understate our delight.

While the garden pots and urns still look sparse, they will soon enough fill in, and the same can be said for the garden beds and borders. Our oldest and largest hostas are beginning to assert themselves and I'm giving some consideration to separating some to re-plant elsewhere. There are always nips and tucks of the most pleasurable type to be done in the garden.