It is nothing short of astonishing, the rapidity with which nature urges her vegetation to mature once they have freed themselves from the confines of spring-thawed soil. Perennials are celebrating their freedom to flaunt their presence, filling up the garden beds and borders with form, texture and colour. On the one hand we're delighted when we see how swiftly flowering fruit trees bear their blossoms, and sad because it seems so quick that the wind disturbs the perfection of blossom clusters, breaking up their comradely togetherness, and scattering petals everywhere, carried by the same breezes that shattered their perfection.

A growing pile of confetti, pink and fragrant, now litters the ground and the walkways under the Sarjentii crabs, and the flowering Jade crab on the opposite side of the garden though it flowered later than the others, won't be long in joining them casting their petals to the wind, as the white perfection of exquisite flowers packed on every branch begin their disintegration.

On the other hand, in the beds and borders, hostas are stretching their newly-awakened limbs, so to speak, unfurling their graceful foliage, along with the hydrangeas and the lilies and the irises, the spirea, the alliums and the tree peonies. The planters we've placed here and there along the garden wall when Irving dug deep into the soil to excavate building detritus and replace it with gravel, sand and fertile soil then built the stone retaining walls and laid down the brick walkways twenty-five years ago, are themselves blooming with new life in the colourful annuals we were able to collect from an area horticultural family.

The garden gave us an enthusiastic send-off this afternoon, as we left the house with Jackie and Jillie to make our way to the forested ravine beyond the street we live on. It's been such a superlative weather day, with a high of 25C, freshening breezes and mostly intensely full sun, we couldn't resist deciding to take a longer-than-usual toddle through the woodland trails.

We hadn't seen the pair of Mallards steaming along the creek in the past several weeks, but other trail hikers assured us they were there, mostly comfortably ensconced in the area of the beaver pond, where they would be undisturbed by the presence of continual passers-by. When we saw them this afternoon, once at the start of our hike, and another time when we had doubled back on our circuit,they were serenely unperturbed at our presence, calmly going about their business, the drake's electric-green head and neck brightly shimmering in the sun.