In spring, long after frost has released the garden soil and the sun and rain has warmed and comforted it, it's ready to be worked; friable and obedient to fork and spade. Any eager weeds that have come up are easily removed. And the garden soil seems to want to tempt the gardener to get on with things. Nothing quite speaks to the dedicated gardener anxious to get out and begin clearing away winter organic detritus, coddling the perennials eager to present themselves, and entertain thoughts of annual planting, like the weather that has finally arrived with its sweet breezes, warm temperatures and brilliant sun.

And if anyone needs to have their appetite for gardening whetted, there's nothing quite like a stroll of inspection through whatever is emerging from the garden beds and borders. Like tulips, hyacinths, scilla, lilies and irises, anemones, bergenia and more. Their presence is always a surprise. We know they're there, that they're faithful to spring, that their pop-up presence seems overnight, that their sparkling, bright colours are breathtaking, but we never take them for granted.

Early this morning my husband set out to acquire bags of garden soil, firm in the belief that the early hour would mean a sparcity of others with like intentions at garden centres. That reasoning was soon abused. There are a number of garden centres in close proximity to one another and at each one there was a long, looonng line-up to be enabled to enter. My husband isn't fond of line-ups for anything, at any time.

And then there's serendipity. On his arrival back home he noticed one of our good neighbours out on his front lawn, supervising a crew of workmen who were repairing his lamppost, knocked over when an overzealous winter snow-clearing tractor driver was in too much of a hurry. During their conversation my husband mentioned what he'd been up, and our neighbour informed him that he had 21 bags of soil in his garage which he had no intention of using. A simple commercial exchange took place and now my husband has the wherewithal to fill all of our many garden pots. He already has the sheep manure and the peat moss he needs, bags of it, left over from last year.

Then we went off for our ravine walk with Jackie and Jillie. Warmer than yesterday by far, and with full sun leavened by a temperate wind, the weather was sheer perfection. Surprisingly, we encountered only a scant few people out on the trails. They must have been in line at the garden centers. We heard the bell-like but piercing call of bluejays. There was a time when we'd often see and hear bluejays when we lived in the Toronto area of southern Ontario, here in Eastern Ontario we hear and see them only in spring and occasionally in fall, on the move, passing through.

Before we left the ravine circuit we had chosen for the day, we made a bit of a side trip down one of the hillsides to see if any of the rare (in this area) white trilliums had yet fully opened. And though the plants of the white trilliums are only just beginning to establish their blooms, and they're in scant numbers in the woodland ravine, there was a small clump and some singles fully opened, the flower heads proudly raised to the sun, not shy and downcast like the red trilliums that are far more numerous.

After we returned home, because it was yet quite early in the afternoon we decided to take a drive over to a near-distant, more bucolic gardening centre, family owned and in operation for many years. They have a large footstep in the area where they operate, and there is a lot of room for people to wander about as they select their choices of plants, annuals, perennials, trees, shrubs, rocks, gravel, soil, quite an established operation. Of course anywhere one goes the requirement is to wear face masks and gloves.

However, unlike the place we had visited yesterday, also a family enterprise, on the opposite end of the city which had people walking through their greenhouses, this one, though it has wide open spaces for people to meander about, offered curbside pickup with online ordering only. And so, sadly, we drove home without the many colourful flats of annuals we had intended to take possession of. Just in case ... we drove over to a handful of other centers, commercialized in a different way, large seasonal operations, attached to large box stores. All had closed direct entry to their gardening centres, to have people enter their building premises first and then be permitted into their garden centres. Baffling. And the line-ups for entry were each a block long.

Home we went again. And found, each of us, plenty to do in the gardens, mostly cleaning up, cutting back trees and shrubbery, feeling the sun on our backs, taking out shears and long-handled cutters, re-acquainting ourselves with gardening as we know it, in preparation for the summer of 2020. Shopping for all the flower flats we anticipate using will have to wait, until the general public is satisfied they have all they wanted, and the opportunity will arrive for us to revel in row upon row of annual flowers prepared to do their best to entertain and beautify our surroundings for another year.