Certainly, yesterday's ramble in the ravine for Jackie and Jillie was unusual. Not because the forest was sodden, as it has been increasingly of late, but because the serenity and stillness of the forest was absent. Throughout the length of our hour-and-a-half circuit through the forest trails from main trails to offshoots then linking back to the main trails, thunder followed us mercilessly.

Thunder as in ear-splittingly loud sounds. There were times when that thunder receded, grew faint, then seemed to disappear, and then it would return again and again. This was no thunderstorm of the variety that we're accustomed to that brings rain along with it. The forest was already drenched from the storms and rain events that have made their daily appearance.

Foliage was slicked with rain, some parts of the trails were wet and greasy, particularly on the ascent/descent. We could see light glinting from the transparent pearls that remained on leaves even though it had been several hours since the last rainfall. Light, despite that the interior of the forest was dusky even at that early hour of the day.

True, the landscape was darker than usual because the sky itself was packed with dense charcoal grey clouds. It was from above those clouds that threatened, but did not release rain, where the mind-shocking sound emanated from. Above the clouds flew the precise formation of the Canadian Snowbirds, part of a week-long Gatineau Air Show.

We'd already heard them from time to time earlier in the week, but not as incessantly as yesterday afternoon. Their flight, we noted, disturbs the air so markedly that below their flight even the shrubs and plants in the garden are affected, swaying back and forth. One might think that dense clouds might absorb some of the sound or act as a barrier otherwise to the roaring jets, and it they did, we would hardly credit them with softening the sound. Each time the sound was at its height it seemed utterly deafening.

Jackie and Jillie were distinctly displeased, on the edge of panic at first, then resigned and finally attempted as much as they could to ignore the penetrating racket. Barking furiously initially, then simply trudging forward, barking stilled. For our part, we'd have preferred to see the planes as they fled across the sky but we were prevented from the sight-show by the cloud cover. Still just as we were on the cusp of completing our circuit there was a break in the clouds and we could see, streaking across that brief window, a single jet, a warplane, not the Snowbirds. We were convinced it was breaking the sound barrier.

Earlier, about halfway through our walk, I noticed a tiny red squirrel bolting out of one of the holes of an old Spruce giant. We'd seen the little fellow before and it was obvious the tree was its home. We would sometimes see it exiting one hole and entering another; apartment living for little furred creatures. This time he sat on a slender branch about a quarter of the way up the thick trunk, nibbling on something. Clearly, the intrusive sound wasn't bothering him.