Our Internet service is anything but reliable. Yesterday countless times it failed and I was unable to access the web. Usually when it happens I shut off connectivity myself at the power bar, and connection is restored. Yesterday, however, that restoration lasted no more than five minutes before it lapsed again. More usually I rely on Microsoft functions to launch an internal investigation to suss out the problem and the search concludes with a restoration of connectivity.

That expedient failed to work yesterday. So the next step was the modem. Shutting it off completely, waiting five minutes, then turning it back on again, watching the lights blink from red to orange to green and in fifteen minutes, voila! service restored. But it's a nuisance and it's time-consuming. The modem isn't easy to reach, for one thing, it sits about eight feet in height atop a work station that holds my desktop.

Last year Bell responded to my reports of intermittent shut-offs by sending technicians around. Their search concluded with the admission that the underground cable running to the house had somehow sustained damage of some kind . A temporary solution of the problem was arranged, to run a cable with permission of our neighbours from their cable to ours, looping it up and around the back gate. That was two years ago. In the dead of winter they sent a crew around to dig down about six feet through snow and ice and frozen soil with a little monster of a machine to repair the cable. In the process ruining our lawn.

So when spring arrived another crew came by, dumped some hard lumpy soil to fill the excavation, scattered grass seed over the uneven surface they left and departed. My husband worked at the soil to make it more friable and level, then put down seed of his own. Grass grew sporadically and the result was nothing like the perfect lawn my husband had worked at producing the year before when he laid down a thick layer of clean soil, amended it and seeded it. It was the best lawn we'd ever had.

This spring the grass slowly began to disintegrate. The soil full of fat maggots eating the grass roots until little was left. Then they went to work on our neighbour's lawn. He applied a bio-insecticide to try to stop the ravaging. At the same time suddenly his cable went, too. And Bell reversed the situation, running a temporary cable from ours to his. Now they're scheduled at some point to dig up the lawns once more to repair the damaged cables.

It's been a good summer for all growing things, a summer where no one had to be concerned over watering their lawns because there's been so much rain of all kinds from constant thunderstorms to other heavy rain events. And finally a pattern emerged of late afternoon, early evening, all-night and early morning rain. Like clockwork. When we set out for our daily ravine ramble with Jackie and Jillie early this morning, rain had just stopped.

As we made our way through the sodden forest, rain dripped from the canopy above, and we felt it would be certain that while we were out rain would begin anew. We all wore rainjackets, but the rain held off. A cold morning, at 13C, with light wind, but we were all dressed against the cold. A beautiful large hound we've seen on a few other occasions came by, and eventually its human, as we rested atop the first of the hills we clambered up.

Jackie and Jillie introduced themselves, and this was only the second time we saw Jillie inviting a much larger dog to a play-tussle. She exhibited the kind of inviting crouch that she usually directs only at her brother. So that's progress. She's finally intuited that she can play with other dogs, not only Jackie. She did the same thing a few days earlier with a little schnauzer, more her size.

The forest interior always looks dim, all the more so on a heavily overcast, humid day with rain in the offing. But the dusky atmosphere seems to lend a focus in colour contrasts. It was easy to see at a distance how the mushrooms rampant on the forest floor stand out, illuminated and irresistible, just arguing to be photographed.

When we completed our circuit and arrived back home, there was a technician from the gas company parked in front of the driveway, preparing to put down the little colourful flags that identify the areas that anyone digging must avoid to ensure nothing amiss occurs with the gas-delivery pipes. Hydro had already been by days earlier with their avoidance-identifying flags. The grass-absent lawn is ablaze with red and yellow flags.

After breakfast we went out to do the grocery shopping. By some strange alchemy of doggy sixth-sense Jackie and Jillie always know when we're about to leave, long before there's evidence before them that this is what is being planned. They become quiet and trot closely after us. When we enter the laundry room to put on our shoes and exit into the garage, they stand there, disconsolately and begin to voice their unhappiness.