Thursday is usually fish day in this household. No special reason, just habit. Which doesn't rule out fish in some form any other day of the week. But yesterday it was salmon baked in the oven with a lemon-pepper sauce and served with oven-baked potato chips. The new crop yellow potatoes are the ones we most favour, they make perfect chips. I always cut the potatoes into chip form, then let them soak an hour or so in cold water before draining them for the oven, covered lightly with a thin film of olive oil. I have the chips plain on my plate, my husband uses malt vinegar and catsup often, but lately he's asked for poutine.

So poutine it was, yesterday. Mozzarella cheese cut in slender blocks to sprinkle over the hot chips and over that the gravy I concocted with oil, flour, beef soup powder, water and pepper. His job is to stir it to a paste until it thickens. I had earlier baked a fruit crisp with four sliced peaches and a half-pint of raspberries, topped by a flour/butter/brown sugar/cinnamon crumble. It was still slightly warm when I served it for dessert.

Hot weather meals are no longer appropriate. Yesterday was a cool, windy and overcast day. A fresh vegetable salad preceded the main course; our concession to the kind of healthy fare appropriate in any weather conditions. We had put the gas fire on in mid-afternoon to help warm up the house. Usually when it's sunny out, the rays of the sun stream through the large windows of the house warming everything up. That's been missing for days, so warmer meals hit the spot, as it were.

But this morning dawned bright and sunny. The house lit up brilliantly like a wildfire was in progress. But with the clear blue sky was a drop in temperature to 7C, so it was cold. Cold enough for light jackets. And we tucked light gloves in our pockets just in case. Even Jackie and Jillie wore light little tee shirts when we went off into the ravine. 

Time of year and time of day conspired toward eye-blinding brightness, hot sunrays streaming through the forest canopy. The ground underfoot remained steeped in rainwater, but enough wind and exposure to sun will relieve some of that, though not all, given the temperature. It's an odd thing that when it's so bright out, much less of the forest landscape reveals itself, as compared to overcast conditions when a kind of twilight reigns in the forest and yet even so, everything you view in the landscape is clearly revealed.

Unlike yesterday in the light drizzle and heavy overcast when no one else was about, this early morning there were other people we've been long acquainted with out with their dogs, enjoying the chill brightness of the day. When Jillie sees one of her favourite people ahead she struggles to reach him, twisting about in excited little circles until we reach her target. She never forgets anyone who fusses over her and rubs her obligingly, ears and back. 

A little boy walking with his grandparents and their two dogs always makes an effort to play with our two puppies; it's their size that seems to intrigue him, but neither of them are cuddly dogs; Jackie will shy away from contact, and Jillie is only slightly better in most circumstances. Yet this sweet little boy never gives up; every time we see him, he crouches to their level and does his best to interest them in his presence. So we obliged by giving him the chunks of apple to dole out to them, and to his own disinterested dog, small rollover biscuits that suddenly enlivened the atmosphere.

Back home, after breakfast our two little fellows collapsed on the sofa, nestling in the warmth of the sun streaming through the windows, ready to rest after a strenuous hike in the woods, the excitement of seeing friends, the hard work involved in snuffling up their breakfast, and the call of fatigue.

They slept through all the excitement in the kitchen, my punching up a bread dough to be refrigerated until later use, and putting a chicken soup on to simmer until dinnertime, then baking coconut-raspberry cupcakes for dinnertime dessert. That will be their dinner too, since the chicken used in the soup will become their evening meal for the following several days.