Jackie and Jillie are accustomed to being out-of-doors for lengthy periods during the day, but those periods are pretty well confined to our ravine walks. They have no interest whatever in being out in the backyard which is safely fenced in, on their own. They'll go out to do their business there, but mostly as long as we accompany them down the stairs from the deck into the backyard.

If either of us is outside gardening, they'll be enthusiastic about being with us in the yard for a short period, then want to re-enter the house, leaving us outside to continue with our work. Their preference is being indoors. Although to be sure they're unhappy when we're outside and they're inside, and anxiously wait for us to finish whatever we're doing and rejoin them.

Unless, that is, we're out at the front of the house working on the gardens there. That's when they're likeliest to volunteer to be with  us. Something about the front of the house interests them where the back doesn't. And that 'something' is the appearance of other people, of people with dogs, of neighbours. And then they become excited and want to dash right over to them.

If it's someone with a dog and they don't recognize the dog their attitude is fiery and antagonistic. If it's a dog they know, they're just excited and interested. If it's someone they know, or someone they don't know, as long as that someone is human their instinct is to dash from the lawn to the street as people pass by, barking enthusiastically, tail-wagging, waiting to be petted.

We've tried to teach them that the road is a dangerous place. Fortunately our street hosts very little  traffic other than vehicles belonging to the people who live on the street. It always used to horrify me that a neighbour up the street would let her little dog out and then not be concerned where he was, and that little dog would be everywhere up and down the street on its own. How it avoided being the cause or the centre of an accident eluded us, but he managed just fine, although he wasn't particularly focused on getting out of the way on being confronted by an approaching vehicle.

Our earlier little poodles, Button and Riley knew better. Although we were always alert to where they were on our property if they accompanied us outside they knew they weren't permitted to approach the road. Yesterday we gave it another try, permitted Jackie and Jillie to be with us at the front of the house while my husband was replacing the windshield wipers on his car and I was doing a little trimming in the garden.

We both whipped around just in time to see both of the little tramps, barking furiously, streak down the driveway and onto the road as a neighbour who lives down the street strolled by with her little dog. They were rewarded by our neighbour stooping down and petting them. The opposite of the reward was that they were ordered straight back into the house where they'd be safe, while we both got on with our outside work.

I was busy trimming, among other things, our giant Jacks-in-the-Pulpit that were well past bloom and leaning onto and shading some of our hostas. And dead-heading spent flowerheads. We'd been much earlier out on the forest trails on a cool morning that turned into a moderately hot day of 29C. There we noticed that the pin cherry trees were dangling ripening cherries, bright and fiery-red caught in shafts of sunlight penetrating the forest canopy.

The same conditions coaxes wild sunflowers to look their best as well, as the flower centers ripen into seeds edible for wildlife. So for all of us there's ample outdoor opportunities on these mostly 30C days, nicely cooled by prevailing breezes, where as long as we're slightly shaded, these long, hot days of summer can be fully enjoyed and appreciated.