Busy day today. We've moved suddenly, as is the norm in the Ottawa Valley, from night-time frosts to day-time heat, with temperatures rising to the mid 20Cs. The sudden transition, though so common year after year, always takes us by surprise. No time to acclimate. All of a sudden it's 24C, and it feels hot with the sun relentlessly glaring on the landscape. A nice breeze helps. In many ways; if it's strong enough it wafts the mosquitoes away. None have yet appeared in our garden, but they're plentiful and voracious in the ravine. 

Time for us to move our winter clothing out of the way and haul out the summer clothing. We've ample storage room in the old pine 19th century six-board chests from the time aeons ago that we were interested in Canadiana pine furniture. Jackie and Jillie padded about with us going back and forth changing over the clothing to make it more accessible for the warm-weather stuff and less so for the cold-weather. 

Outside, Irving finished filling our cast-stonewear urns with fresh garden soil, and I eventually got outside too and began planting the lobelia, verbena, begonias and other floral plants we acquired on Friday. Before that I tied up our clematis vines in the backyard and Jackie and Jillie were able to keep me company there. Once I moved to the front of the house, they had to get back inside, and were grateful for that because our backyard's micro-climate is one of dry heat.

Red baneberry in bloom

Once I was finished with all the planting, not just in the garden pots and urns, but planting little clumps of wax begonias in various parts of the garden for bright pops of colour, I had just about depleted the latest round of bedding plants we'd acquired. We've also got little half-round stone planters attached to the low garden wall alongside the walk leading to the porch and wax begonias enjoy life there through the summer.

When I had watered everything, it was time to clean up the garden tools and myself and collect Jackie and Jillie for an afternoon hike through the ravine. Nature's bounty is in full display there. But that time of new growth also comes with mosquitoes and since we prefer not to use any kind of bug repellent we do take care to cover our arms and legs with light-coloured-and-textured fabric, so I was dressed all in white to keep the mosquitoes away.

They won't stay away, though. Every time you pause on the trail to speak with someone, to take note of something of particular interest you want to look at more closely, swarms of mosquitoes emerge joyfully en masse to smother your face and hands. We saw strawberries in bloom, and the wild apple trees also in bloom, along with Hawthorn trees.

There are trilliums whose red  hue was so dark the colour almost resembled red/black. And pink ones as well, and some of the largest we can ever recall seeing. It's their time of year and they make the most of it. Now too, the Jack-in-the-Pulpits are appearing here and there alongside the trails on the forest floor and they're an absolute delight to see; delicate and lovely, the single purple-striped petal, green on top and colourful interior.

The black cherry trees in the forest have also begun to form their floral sprays that will become black cherries. And finally, the Lilies-of-the-Valley that appear everywhere on the forest floor, mostly clustered around the trunks of trees, are also in bloom, sending their exquisitely small white sprays of tiny flowers up through the centre of the glossy-green foliage.