Gloomy news; sad and bad things happening in our city, the capital of the country. And today's weather, and the dark sky reflect that troubling mood. It's raining, heavily, has been all day, and we certainly don't mind the rain. It's life-affirming, without it vegetation won't grow. And the offshoot of that is the simple fact that agriculture is hugely dependent on rain. Closer to home, so are our gardens. Although nature spurs everything that grows outdoors to come back to life in spring, she also generously provides the wherewithal so that they may. Sun and rain.

A miscalculation or misfortune of nature has also impacted our collective well-being in the most deleterious way imaginable; the biological creation of a pathogen that is programmed by nature to replicate endlessly, and to do so it seeks out a warm and moist host to enable it to. We have become a universal host to an indifferently deadly virus. Which doesn't set out to kill  us, only to use us for breeding purposes. But the vulnerable among us are impacted by its effects destroying our internal organs.

And right now, in Ottawa, the variant viruses that have been introduced to Canada from where they first were detected, the U.K., South Africa and Brazil, are wreaking havoc. The city and the province are not only in lockdown but under stay-at-home orders. And vaccination clinics have opened everywhere, including at area pharmacies to inoculate people against the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Targeting first the most vulnerable in our populations and making their way down to the more general public.

Canada's late start in procuring vaccines, however, has played a part in our not having sufficient vaccine doses and a late start in vaccinating, and the result has been mass illness, and deaths amidst school closings, work-from-home alternatives, business closings, public spaces off limits, social distancing, enhanced hygiene practices and face-masking.

None of which has spared the city from so many hospitalizations that intensive care units cannot cope with the influx. "If this trend continues, the health-care system will have extreme difficulty keeping up. We have never seen anything like this before", stated the deputy medical officer of health. The sheer volume of patients and the fact that even that volume is on the increase is over capacity, representing "a completely different order of magnitude and a major challenge for how they [hospitals] would provide care", he cautioned the public.

From that dire situation, to our great good fortune in having been vaccinated, having accustomed ourselves to the need to self-isolate, having made this new method of living a part of our daily lives. And for us a vital part of our daily lives irrespective of the situation prevailing, is to maintain health and sanity by continuing to venture out daily to our nearby forested ravine. 

There, we and our two little dogs make a daily investment in the curative powers of nature, far from the anomalous dangers inherent in natural systems gone amok. It's been a rainy day, so we accoutered ourselves accordingly, including rainjackets for Jackie and Jillie. It's cooler than it has been of late, thanks to the heavily overcast conditions, but fortunately little wind to make things more uncomfortable.

The forest is brightly varnished in rain, and thirsty for whatever it can gain from the rain. The creek is swiftly moving downstream the water thrashing and foaming as it passes by. The trunks of trees glisten with colour, muted usually without the slickness that rain endows it with. Now trees that are lichen-festooned are noticeable.

And we noted also that around the trunks of trees on the forest floor, greenery is finally emerging, and the rain certainly has to be given much credit for that. Yesterday I saw no sight whatever of the wild lilies-of-the-valley, and today, ta-da! there they are. With sun and warmer temperatures in a week or so they'll also begin to bloom.