Since we woke yesterday to a cool, breezy morning expecting the high to be no greater in the afternoon than 26C and there was plenty that needed to be done around the house, we decided we'd delay our ravine with with Jackie and Jillie until the afternoon, rather than head out before breakfast as we've been doing lately with higher-temperature days.

We did a brief tour of the garden to see what was happening in the wake of so much rain that has fallen in the last several days. One of our oldest Echinacea (coneflower) patches was beginning its flowering phase. That one is in the backyard. Several others at the front of the house don't seem to have matured to the same degree yet, so they'll be blooming quite a bit later.

Also in the backyard a clump of Black-eyed Susans, much diminished in size from last year, has begun to bloom. A much larger grouping in the front has also matured to the same degree; both are in full sun, so one would expect they'd react similarly, but the fact is the microclimate in the back tends to bring much warmer temperatures than in the front.

The Annabelle Hydrangeas at the side of the house in what we call our Hosta garden have developed large flowerheads, just now beginning to turn from pale green petal clumps to startling white. This is a plant, like hostas, that takes so readily to separation and planting small clumps elsewhere that starting with one shrub you could speedily cover an entire garden with them. The Morning Glories are clambering steadily up their poles and toward the top of the fence, putting out their bright morning faces to greet us.

And Jackie and Jillie confronted us in the house with a quizzical look on both their faces as though to ask 'what's happening? where's our walk?' So once the afternoon had arrived and we'd finished a few chores off we went with them. They trotted happily on before us through the trails they know so well. They also know that my husband, an inveterate berry picker, will always find a few ripe berries for them, and they wait beside him with high expectancy as he plucks the last of the raspberries and the first of the thimbleberries and divides them evenly, to offer each of them their portions.

In the ravine, the forest hosts the wildflowers reflecting the oncoming season. Though it's only late summer there are signals of fall, all too soon. The first of the wild fall asters have begun to bloom. They're the sparse-petalled, pale purple type, not the later more lush bright purple-pink ones, larger and far more attractive than the earlier ones.

Because of the rain that came down through the week, moisture-loving jewelweed has finally and discretely put out a few proper flowerheads, not like the shrivelled, tiny ones that have arisen previously. And we discovered much later, when we had completed out circuit that some misguided soul had taken it upon themselves to yank out all of the Himalayan orchids that have been in bright bloom the past few weeks. That's pure vandalism.

Back to the garden again, on our return home. The sight of the flourishing garden soothed the acute annoyance I feel whenever someone going through the forest trails does something truly stupid. We've seen more than our share of tree saplings snapped in half by adolescents who may think it's amusing. But I can't imagine what would motivate someone passing these beautiful plants to yank them out by the roots and discard them as though they've somehow triumphed over nature.

Looking about the garden you note little things like the habit of the red-hued heucheras to send their little pups everywhere they can, and so they proliferate as minuscule plants at first growing between the cracks of the walkway bricks, and then they become ever more mature, awaiting their day in the sun. In the past I've gently removed some of the more mature ones, to replant them in the garden and they've thrived. But these little volunteer plants seem happy to be left to their own devices, growing where you don't think they should.

Among them are sometimes to be found lobelia seedlings that have somehow wandered in the strangest places from the garden pots to the garden and to the walkway. Now, they've been joined by petunias, blooming happily here and there at the edges of the garden ledges that my husband laid down fifteen years ago. Whenever I see weeds trying to populate the walkways I remove them, but I can recognize the initial stages of cultivated flowers and usually leave them to develop. The reward comes when they inevitably bloom; volunteers in aesthetic form and beauty.