We decided yesterday, in view of the fact that the weather had turned (we felt) definitely toward spring, that it was time to set aside the heavy, felt-lined halters we use for Jackie and Jillie. We had bought new halters for them last October while we were hiking about in the White Mountain range. And it was time, we thought, to bring them out. A little bit of adjustment and on they went.

They're lighter, they're soft and very attractive. Unsurprisingly, pink for Jillie and blue for Jackie. And off we went to the ravine. It was cool enough for us to wear light jackets. The warmth we were treated to for several days last week hasn't lingered. And we were glad we had the jackets, since the wind was sharp and cold and it penetrated through the forest trails since there are, given it is early spring, large open spaces with no foliage dense enough yet to deter the wind.

Of course, day by day we are encountering more than ample signals that the forest floor is slowly, almost imperceptibly, filling out. We've seen bedding grasses join other vegetation in their first, tentative appearances. Needless to say, the process has a long, long way to go. Even so, the forest under-story here and there is sporting bright green new leaves.

With the change in temperature and greater sun appearances, and of course the rain, it is nothing short of amazing that what we now see as sparse indication of the forest renewing itself, will suddenly take a huge leap forward, leaving us dazzled at the point where suddenly the green screen of full foliage takes us so aback and we will wonder when it all happened.

Not when we weren't looking, since we've always been looking. It just sort of creeps up on us, so gradual is the transformation from the bare aspect we see today, to the slight improvements, to the sudden perception that somehow the process accelerated beyond our capacity to truly appreciate just how much it had sped up.

We sight a greater number of squirrels out and about now. If Jackie and Jillie aren't looking in the right direction, a whispered "squirbie" from us will bring them to sharp attention as they scrutinize left and right to try to see the squirrel. Jackie, spotting the right direction will begin leaping into the underbrush sparse as it is, to follow the squirrel. Jillie will take short little spurts in the same direction but quickly lose interest. She rarely bothers to leave the trail for the forest interior, like her brother.

And invariably, when the squirrel clambers swiftly up a tree trunk, Jackie becomes confused, standing there, looking in all directions, wondering where the squirrel had gone to. Here one moment, gone the next. Just wondering how much longer it will take before he realizes that the last leap he has seen the squirrel take carried it up into a tree.

Lilies of the Valley are now beginning to proliferate around tree trunks and we'll check avidly to try to catch them in bloom. The vast tracts of trout lilies on the forest floor are in no great hurry. But in that sea of mottled green we will suddenly come across a nodding golden head catching the sun, and then another and another....

As we crossed the last bridge on the near-completion of our circuit through the ravine yesterday afternoon, we noted that a sluice somewhere must have opened to empty holding ponds quite some distance upstream from where we were, and the water rushing anew through the creek had become somewhat of a torrent. Rippling and coursing over the many obstacles that had fallen into it, to create rapids and miniature waterfalls with their delightful sound.

And there, navigating under the bridge and around fallen tree trunks, was a pair of beautiful Mallards, the male's bright green cap iridescent, sparkling as the sun's rays picked out the colour and shone it back to us, gawping at the bridge.