We got up with the alarm this morning just after seven -- truly barbaric to interrupt a peaceful sleep -- so we could leave the house early to do the food shopping. By the time we leave the supermarket, the parking lot is beginning to fill up, although one hardly notices the difference in the almost-empty-of-shoppers store, but we encounter few others shopping at an early hour, which is the point of the exercise. Hasn't everyone become averse to the near presence of others?

Things seem to be going from bad to serious locally with news that people are suddenly dying at home with COVID, the transition from feeling poorly to becoming alarmingly sick so swift that they don't even have the opportunity to get themselves to a hospital before they die. India's situation is horrible, Ontario's is increasingly frightening when we're not even close to the disaster India is facing.

Soon after we returned home, Irving saw Lynne, our next-door neighbour, scattering soil on our lawn. Where Bell once again excavated last summer, then hurried filled in the excavation, had someone put some topsoil over, and grass seed, in the spring, the entire area collapsed about four inches deep. Irving is planning to order soil to begin the task once again of levelling off the lawn and re-seeding it. He had it just perfect after the first time they dug into the lawn two years earlier to repair faulty connections, then they dug the area up again to repair their cables properly.

Lynne said they had extra bags of soil, and she thought she'd begin working on our lawn, and of course Irving expostulated that it isn't her work that should be repairing our lawn, but our own. Lynne and Daniel and have been doing things like this lately; all winter they shovelled our porch and walkways free of snow.  We've lived side-by-side for 25 years, and they've lately adopted us, as it were. They're meticulous about the care of their property.

Dan came over later in the morning for a chat and it was agreed he and Irving would go together, using Irving's truck to pick up bags of soil, rather than order a yard to be dumped on our driveways; much easier to handle, and cleaner. And the job would be done. 

It's turned out to be another fantastic weather day; wide blue sky, a beaming sun, light wind in our approach to May. I went out soon after breakfast to do a little puttering about in the backyard, getting rid of some weeds. And then I planted a few perennials; divided a few just-emerging hostas, and enjoyed myself tremendously.

Then I later finally finished cleaning the kitchen cupboards and the double-glazed (19th C.pine Canadiana) buffet in the breakfast room, as part of my spring cleaning ritual. And it was time to get ourselves out to the ravine with Jackie and Jillie for a tramp through the forest. Never without my camera. The forest landscape in a sweeping glance looks dry and bare and unattractive. But look up and the maples are sporting their immature tiny red leaves, the poplars are just beginning to pop little yellowish leaves, the understory shrubs and saplings are far more advanced in greening up.

Strangely enough, the raspberry and the thimbleberry canes are faster in producing their foliage than many other shrubs, like dogwood and hazelnut and honeysuckle. They're more noticeable at this time of year because they stand out amidst the barren appearance overall, and demand attention. Finally, the trout lilies have begun to flower, their delicately shy little heads nodding toward the warmth of the sun.

The trilliums are seeing more of their blooms fully extended, blazing bright red on a forest floor where dappled sunlight scatters its radiance freely before the forest canopy becomes dense with foliage, denying the sun entry. The tiniest of the woodland violets are now beginning to bloom and the coltsfoot, the very first of the wildflowers to begin blooming a month ago, are still in evidence.

The sharp eye of a young woman walking with her two little girls caught the movement of a raccoon in a tree, and she was kneeling in front of her children, pointing their eyes in the direction of the raccoon as we approached the ravine exit, after the completion of our circuit. One of the very rare times when we've seen raccoons in the forest ourselves lately, although years ago we did see them more frequently. Now, however, we see them daily on our porch, scooping up the squirrels' Cheerios, nonchalant about appearing in public in the daylight hours.