We roused ourselves early enough to arrive at our usual supermarket to do the grocery shopping at 7:00 a.m. when they're supposed to be open specifically for seniors during this time of COVID-19. Only to find the rules of the game had changed. They will no longer open daily at 7:00 restricting the hour between 7:00 and 8:00 to seniors, other than Monday, Wednesday and Friday. And this was Tuesday. Feeling rather disgruntled, we left the parking lot housing Food Basics and made our way another ten minutes' drive to the supermarket of the same chain, but more upscale, Metro, their signature store.
They were open, welcoming seniors, and we found the store well stocked with fresh fruits and vegetables. My only complaint is that the store is too large, stocks too much that is inimical to healthy eating, and the prices are a little higher. But we got what we came for, and groaned under the weight of the whole foods we'll be consuming in the coming week or two. Jackie and Jillie were delighted to welcome us back home with huge enthusiastic leaps and bounds as though we had rescued them from a deep, dark dungeon.
And Jackie, with his keen nose checked out all the bags and boxes containing what I would spend the next half-hour unpacking and storing away, to discover which of them held the cauliflowers which we share with them. He dug his nose deep to find one of them, and immediately began availing himself of what he could of its delicious promise, until I whisked it away and out of reach. He'd have to wait until 3:00 in the afternoon for their usual cauliflower snack.
As we relaxed over breakfast, a news item caught my eye. Not surprising, simply validating what we have long been aware of. This July will turn out to be the hottest on record. With the greatest number of successive days well above 30C, in the 35Cs, and 36Cs. With night-time temperatures giving scant relief, so the build-up is enervating and miserable for a whole lot of people. While we lingered over breakfast, we made quick work of the following clean-up and prepared to launch ourselves into a ravine fling with Jackie and Jillie.
These days there's no question we have to equip ourselves with water to take along for the puppies. They start out energetically but by the time an hour winding our way through the forest trails has elapsed, they're ready to be refreshed before carrying on. Mind, there's the little pick-me-ups that the fresh, juicy, just-picked berries represent when my husband plucks them swiftly off the proffering shrubs as we pass.
Already, we note, the poplars have begun shedding the occasional leaf. We see them lying on the trail, forlorn, detached from the trees sitting high above, their foliage flagging at us in the wind. Those discarded leafs are always colourful, presaging autumn. They've turned from the deep dark green of their sister foliage to splotches of pinks and yellows.
Another 30C day in the offing. Sunny, with occasional clouds, none the type that signal rain in the offing. But for the most part the canopy keeps us sheltered from the sun, and today there's a good stiff wind, providing a much-appreciated cooling opportunity in gusts now and again when the wind penetrates the forest thicket. Glancing up above, the sight of the tree masts, deciduous and evergreen both, swaying in the wind, can be mesmerizing.
We noted for the first time, the presence of an immature chokecherry tree close to the second bridge, down on the bank of the creek. Its dangling fruit already bright red, accentuated brightly as they catch the rays of the sun. We also saw a new kind of fungus, one we don't recall ever having come across before. It wasn't very attractive, just quite different, and presumably as efficient as any other in speeding the decay of the old trunk it was fastened on.
Despite the massing heat of the day, and that it was nearing noon, there were several groups of women out with children riding bicycles. Which their mothers had the chore of pushing uphill whenever they came abreast of an ascent too difficult for young children to negotiate. There was also a family group of runners; father, mother, daughter and dog, all seemingly effortlessly floating speedily uphill and down and cheerily, at that.
We came across an old acquaintance who mentioned to us that signage had been put in place over at one of the entrances to the ravine off a major thoroughfare alerting people that the municipality was spraying in the forest against wild parsnip. We haven't seen any at all this year, though we had in the year before. The plants can cause skin irritation if someone accidentally or unknowingly rubs up against them.
On the other hand, poison ivy can do a lot more damage, and there's plenty of it in evidence. Frankly, people hiking through a forest should be aware of what to avoid, should be able to recognize the types of vegetation they come across, preferably to spraying chemicals. Yanking the offending plant out is just as efficient. There was one unpleasant sight we came across just as we were arriving at the conclusion of our circuit. We heard it long before we saw it, a low, loud rumble of a large specialized machine meant for managing, we would assume, environments such as an urban forest.
The driver seemed not to have a defined purpose, simply tracking at low speed through an upper trail, until he arrived at the cusp of a trail that narrows and steeply descends and certainly wouldn't accommodate the width and breadth of the machine. We watched as he backed it up and trundled back along the trail. When we asked the driver, seeing the machine parked later at a more open area what he was doing, his response failed to elucidate. Perhaps he was looking for wild parsnips, though by his manner we were left with the impression that his interest in botany was strictly peripheral.
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