Evidently, according to local news stories, residents of this great city have gone overboard in their sudden enthusiasm for the great outdoors. And we have plenty of great outdoors in our close vicinity. A half-hour drive will take one to our next-door province of Quebec, for example, to enter the wilderness area of Gatineau Park, replete with hundreds of trails, short and long, easy, medium and difficult for the enterprising outdoors person.

But other parts of Ontario, an hour's drive from the nation's capital lead to other, smaller provincial parks, lakes and forests -- and outdoor equipment retailers are basking in the fact that all of a sudden their wares are in high popular demand. Everyone is fed up with isolation, with the care required to ensure they're at minimal risk for contamination by the novel coronavirus, and looking for some relief.

We found ours, as usual early this morning when we made off with Jackie and Jillie for our nearby ravine. No need to drive anywhere, so how fortunate can we possibly be, other than with what is so close at hand, a forested ravine that runs through a community of tens of thousands of people with relatively easy access. Some drive over, others walk through a series of connecting streets to reach one with access to the ravine, and the most fortunate, like ourselves, merely walk up the street to gain entrance to the forest.

As we did, as usual, on a cool and sunny morning. We've become so accustomed to our early morning trail hikes that we can't imagine simply going downstairs out of bed, into the kitchen to prepare breakfast. It's the meal that tastes so much better after a lengthy ramble through the woods. And, for the most part, it's a ramble that we have pretty much to ourselves. But not this morning.

Even for a Saturday there was a surprising number of people out. We must have come across at least a dozen, perhaps more; singly, in pairs, with and without accompanying pets, doing precisely what we were doing; enjoying the great out-of-doors, a landscape green and clean where we breathe fresh air, exercise our limbs and muscles and feel that much better for it. It's also a bit of a social exposure where people get to know one another and often stop briefly for chats.

After breakfast and cleanup we had other matters to attend to outside. This time not very far from our front door, when the garden called out for a little tidying up, long overdue. Snipping and cutting back wayward and too ambitious tree branches, shrubs and overgrown perennials. Placing the garden landscape into a more pleasing shape.

And in the process taking stock of the health of various plants even while enjoying their appearance for aesthetical perfection. Standing back and taking note of the number of bees and hoverflies around the perfumed flowering hydrangeas. Spotting weeds here and there that we know of as wildflowers when they appear in the ravine, and dispatching them from the garden environs. Though truth to tell, there are many garden residents that began life as wildflowers taken from the ravine and transplanted to the garden.

They're a matter of pride in the way they flourished and adapted to the rich soil of the garden, even in competition with cultivated plants where both over time learned to live companionably together; the Jack-in-the-Pulpit, the foamflower, the trout lily, the trillium, the wild ginger; all valued members of our garden community. And Jackie and Jillie thoroughly approve.