March trounced off in a tetchy mood a week ago. But that's March in this geography; we expect nothing less from that month. Ill tempered and badly behaved. It enters late winter like the proverbial lion pouncing on a helpless victim -- in this case winter-weary animals, including us -- and leaves much the same way. We don't miss its absence.

April can on occasion be a mite temperamental. But that doesn't colour April's reputation in purple-bruised shades of disappointment. We can tolerate the occasional slip back to colder, windier, even snowy weather. The reason being that April apologizes, following up with more agreeable elements to assure us that spring indeed has arrived and summer is right behind.

The weather forecasted for this week is quite, quite wonderful, in the mid-double-digits, and sunny. There is no more snow or ice in the backyard or on the front lawn, and very little left in the forest, other than for swathes of thick ice that every year make us wait for a dry trail to take its eventual place. On occasion we'll take a detour to avoid the icy inclines, but for the most part since we continue to wear our cleats for that very reason, we just take our time to obtain a firm footing and carry on.

In the garden, lilies are emerging. At the front of the house Japanese spurge under the large magnolia tree is green and crisp. The magnolias both at the front and the back of the house are swelling their flower buds and there are hundreds of them. The little rhododendron the same, and so too the older one struggling under a yew tree to assert itself, but complaining 'I was here first' isn't doing it any good.

While I was cleaning the house this morning I realized that our neighbours were raking our lawn, which is attached to theirs. They've exchanged shovelling the snow off our porch and walkways to now doing the spring raking on the lawn. Good souls they are. I'm glad that I had gone out a few days before to pick up most of the winter detritus by hand, leaving the raking to Irving. He always waits for the lawn to dry out completely and become firm to walk on once it has thawed before embarking on that chore. Lynne and Daniel beat him to it this year.

Later, in the afternoon we set out for the ravine with Jackie and Jillie, all of us booted in expectation of continued dicey-going on the mud-gooey trails. It felt extraordinarily warm, given the cooler temperatures we're much more accustomed to. Not a wisp of a cloud in the sky, the sun beaming its warmth at our backs. Once in the ravine, in the forest interior, it's considerably cooler and without light jackets we'd be uncomfortable.

Fewer people out today than even the few-in-number we had come across yesterday. We had a leisurely hike, beyond pleased that we feel confident enough of our puppies' safety taking them off-leash now. It's been a few years that we've felt compelled to walk them on leash through the ravine, ever since the frequent sightings of coyotes during the daylight hours. For the last several months, however, the animals have reverted to their previous behaviour, no longer coming out past dawn.

We're also pleased that Jackie and Jillie appear to be behaving far differently than they had been. They remain curious and somewhat bumptious, given to excitement and loud exclamations in doggy language, but at the same time they've been more obedient to our concerns about them, and we ppreciate that no end.