Our late-morning foray through the forest trails yesterday turned out to be a particularly bewitching experience. There is that about the forest that bewitches us under any circumstances, but this time we decided to take one of those roads less travelled, in a manner of speaking.

We thought that from what we had experienced most of the trails would be well on their way to drying up, making them more effortlessly passable and enticing for a re-introduction. We had gone out earlier than usual for our walk through the forest with Jackie and Jillie because the morning was just simply beyond irresistible.

The sky was cerulean-clear and the sun was burning a hole in the ceiling of the world. The lightest of breezes ran through our hair. We could revel in the spontaneity of deciding to clear out of the house and head directly to the ravine. No preparatory work required. It was a case of 'come as you are'. Jacket? forget it? We just had to remember leashes for Jackie and Jillie, and they're used only to walk them up the street to the ravine entrance, then again back down the street heading for home once our ramble in the woods is finished.

Once we gain the ravine entrance it's a free, free world for Jackie and Jillie, and they make the most of it. Excited barks and yips accompany them as they bolt downhill, swerve to one side of the trail that forms a perfect T formation, inviting us to choose either left or right and get on with it. They stop before the huge old pine sitting on the bank of the creek overlooking its winding waterway to the Ottawa River to look either way, reconnoitering the landscape.

Of course while they're still up at the top of the hill they quickly survey all that they can see from the vantage point of that height before they gather their impulse to swoop down into the ravine. All of which process takes a split second of time. That's when their barks and yips get really high-pitched with excitement, when they spot someone else making their way deep below on the trails. Most regular hikers recognize the racket they make as peculiar to these two little entitled dogs in 'their' ravine, vetting all unauthorized trail users.

This would turn out to be a circuit of discovery for us yesterday morning. Before we reached the first of the bridges across the creek there was a fresh, green familiar duo of just-emerged trilliums, their flower heads already nodding, but not yet prepared to open to the sun -- and when they do they'll be scarlet. A bit of a triumph for me over my skeptical husband who, when I'd said a few minutes earlier that we'd see trilliums that day, scoffed.

At the top of the hill accessed over the bridge we looked for the appearance of coltsfoot, since we have a fairly good idea of where those earliest of spring flowers tend to come up. And sure enough there were colonies of those bright yellow heads enjoying the sun. Such a beautiful day deserved a bit of curiosity-solving, so instead of turning right as we often do to continue along a major trail, or proceed straight ahead for the same purpose, we turned directly left, to a trail we haven't taken in ages.

We followed the narrow trail as it meandered downhill, and it was clear that there had been a succession of slumps there earlier in the spring. There, where the trail takes on a kind of Sleepy Hollow aspect; narrow, gnarled branches extending over the trail from the old trees beside it, and lots of moss. Soon we came abreast of where a beaver dam, pond and lodge should be. But the dam had broken when the stream overflowed and beaver were nowhere to be seen, the pond level considerably reduced. The beaver had either gone elsewhere or had been trapped and taken by wildlife officials to another, more habitable area for them to thrive elsewhere.

This has happened on many previous occasions, but over the years the beavers always seem to be able to find their way back; either the original beavers or simply unattached successors moving to new and promising territory. We doubled back on the trail to continue our hike as per our usual route, all the while seeing clumps of perky coltsfoot here and there beside the trail and down on the exposed banks of the creek.

So too did we see a few haphazard trilliums making their early presence on the forest floor as we continued on our way through out usual circuit. No flower heads have yet appeared among the colonies of trout lilies. They don't, in any event, bloom prolifically despite the crowded presence of their distinctively mottled foliage. What a marvellous cornucopia of wildflowers the forest floor reveals in successive growth demarcating the various periods of the seasons with time allocated to the presence of so many of nature's quite wonderful plant life.

Oh, and even Jackie and Jillie, rather disinterested in botanical specimens, experienced a little injection of surprise and pleasure in their portion of our shared walk through the woods when we came across a two-year-old husky, a happy, rambunctious fellow who entertained us -- as well as played with Jackie and Jillie -- with his obstreperously joyful leaps, bounds and runabouts.