We know the forest trails so intimately from our long exposure to that natural landscape so readily accessed for our pleasure, it doesn't take much to alert our attention to anything different. Before we came remotely close to it, we could see in the distance that a change had occurred. An old dead tree that had been arrested in its collapse a year or so ago when two-thirds of the way up its considerable height it was caught and held in the firm branches of another tree had finally fallen.

It had been in its slanted, fallen-over position during the winter months, acquiring a good amount of snow because of its perpendicular position, and was quite attractive, in fact, in contrast to its position among tall, stalwart trees standing straight, reaching their crowning branches to the sky. While the trunk was displaced, the roots of the tree were likely steadily decomposing along with that part of the trunk still touching the ground. The extremely wet weather conditions this spring further added to its rot, and its weight finally tested the limits of endurance of the neighbouring branch that held it up.

It had fallen, parts of the top of the decaying tree directly over the trail. We wound our way around it to access the first bridge and off we sauntered on our walk. The forest is always shedding a certain proportion of its vegetation in the never-ending cycle of decay and renewal. The forest floor is littered with its discards slowly absorbed back into the soil to eventually become fertilizing mulch.

We passed a middling-large pine which served as an example of a tree's decline. The trunk had been excavated in several places by an industrious Pileated woodpecker, the largest of the woodpeckers we see in our area. In its own never-ending search for insects and larvae that make their destructive homes under the bark of trees, woodpeckers hasten the process that brings the life of a tree to a gradual end. New gaping holes presented themselves to our gaze yesterday.

Jackie and Jillie, oblivious to our observations had their own preoccupations to tend to, and they were happy to come across Max again, the peripatetic little Apricot poodle their own age who has never outgrown his enthusiasm for exploration and rapidly accelerating leaps into the forest interior in his discovery quest of the new and the unusual. Jackie and Jillie have grown far more staid as they've matured from the hugely energetic, rambunctious pair of puppies they once were and that's a relief to us, frankly.

From the overnight rain the forest floor was steeped in pools of water, taking its time to absorb it all, unsurprisingly, given the continuum of rain events day following day, with the occasional sunny break giving us hope that warmth and sun would eventually enter the scene permanently.

Everything looks fairly sere in the forest. The softwoods with their bright green needles offer colour, but the hardwoods barely evince evidence of sprouting foliage, so there is an overall impression of visual dullness. If we look carefully enough at the ground, however, we can see that wild strawberry plants are proliferating, and clover. And the foliage of early blooming woodland violets is beginning to make a presence as well, although we know that there will be a sudden eruption of coltsfoot before the violets bloom; truly the first of the spring wildflowers to mature in the ravine.

In lieu of flowers for the time being, we made do with admiring the voluptuous rosettes of fungi that decorated the stump of an old tree, instead.

Any day now....