It was a tossup yesterday morning, should we or should we not go out early in the morning for a ravine ramble with Jackie and Jillie when I planned to do some baking before the day's heat set in? Mind, it wouldn't reach temperatures in the low 30s, but stretch up to 29C, which seemed not all that bad. In the end, we opted for a morning walk and I'd do everything I had a mind to on our return.

So, off we went for a pleasant, breezy hike along the ravine's forested trails; the difference between that day and the previous morning's being that, after volumes of rain the afternoon and evening before, yesterday remained heavily overcast. With the absence of sun and the presence of a good breeze, 29C wouldn't seem so bad, we reasoned. And it wasn't.

We heard robins singing away happily after their gorge-fest of the day before when worms abandoned their presence underground seeking relief from being thunderstorm-inundated, by making their above-ground presence -- a perfect picnic opportunity for robins. Cardinals too expressed their appreciation of a beautiful morning with their high, bright lilting melodies.

And Jackie and Jillie found an abundance of intriguing fragrances emphasized by the moist atmosphere that took their attention constantly as they veered from one side of the trails to another, forging deeply into the forest floor in search of the precise location of whatever it was they found irresistible.

Their incorrigible browsing habit that we've been unable to dislodge from their focused attention continues and we just have to shrug it off, the alternative being keeping them on leash and confined. (They do respond when we call them back if they go too far out of sight.) Having them on leash is hardly an appealing option when we're all enjoying the freedom and landscape of a familiar forest.

We found that yarrow is now beginning to flower on the forest floor, as is yellow loosestrife. Neither make too much of a dramatic appearance as a wildflower, both fairly modest. The yarrow hasn't the wider appeal and beauty of Queen Anne's Lace, and the loosestrife lacks the bloom-size, conformation and lovely colour of cinquefoil. But we're happy to see them in evidence, in any event.



On our return from the brilliant greenery of the forest where foliage maintained the slick and shine given it by layers of rainwater still clinging to every leaf, it was time for a brief walk-about in the garden where a different, cultivated appearance of flowers in pots and garden beds took our attention. Stella d'Oro lilies are now in bloom and so are the self-seeded Morning Glories which have come up in the front and back gardens in places where they were first planted as seeds years ago.

And then, when we got back into the house I was able to tend to kitchen things, preparing a mocha-chocolate cake batter for cupcakes meant for our evening meal dessert, and to rise a batch of yeast dough enabling me to prepare cheese-sesame-seed croissants for that same meal, to accompany barbecued chicken drumsticks my husband planned to cook in the evening.





I even  had the opportunity to get Jackie and Jillie out into the backyard garden for a short while in the early afternoon while I busied myself with some garden clean-up, cutting back, tying up, just generally establishing a little more order in gardens that feel there should be no restraints imposed upon their natural inclination to stretch out, the various plants imposing upon one another's territory, resisting my feeble efforts at intervention.