Little wonder we dwellers in the Ottawa Valley are so obsessed with the weather. In many other geographic locations there is something that can logically be referred to as 'weather patterns'. If there are 'patterns' in the weather hereabouts they're difficult to identify. Assuredly there are some places on the globe where the inhabitants can state with confidence that their weather is extremely haphazard and unpredictable and this is one of those places.

We've had a succession of densely-moist, stuffy evenings when at night bedroom windows thrown wide open not the merest hint of a cool breeze enters to relieve the humid heat. Tonight won't be one of them, the temperature is set to fall to 4C, and that's fairly cool. All the more so with the presence of a cold, stiff wind. The high for today is 14C ... after successive daytime highs of 28C and 30C.

That said, though it's cool and we needed light jackets hiking through the ravine today, it seems the cooler weather is disagreeable to most peoples' notions of how pleasant it can be to roam through the forest trails on a day so cool and windy there were no mosquitoes or black flies about at all. There were cardinals singing though and song sparrows. And quite a few robins running about here and there on the forest floor as is their wont in the spring. 

We heard young crows complaining that they were waiting far too long to be fed. And we heard a pileated woodpecker hard at work splintering the bark of a nearby tree. The poplars are beginning to release their seeds and the white fluff will soon resemble snow as it accumulates on the forest floor.

We saw a sulphur butterfly and a very large dragonfly for the first time this spring. There are bees about looking for pollen and no doubt they're finding it in the still-sparse array of spring wildflowers. We did see a few lone buttercups, and there are scads of floral panicles covering the many understory dogwood shrubs and trees scattered throughout the ravine.

We've seen quite a few wild strawberry plants in blossom, and this afternoon came across two canes of blackberries in bloom. They're relatively rare in the ravine, whereas there's a robust embarrassment of thimbleberry shrubs everywhere, but they're not yet in bloom.

Jackie and Jillie didn't have occasion this afternoon to greet many of their canine pals. There was a brief interlude with a Brittany spaniel, and not much else, besides a large old black Lab they've been familiar with for a number of years.

We saw Max out hurtling himself through the trails with his usual purposeful stride, pole in either hand. He's a small, wiry man who no matter the weather dresses light; in winter a thin red windbreaker, in the summer a long-sleeved white shirt; how he keeps warm enough for comfort is beyond us. He seems to me to have aged considerably in the last year-and-a-half. He's the lone caregiver for his wife who isn't mobile. He had installed a number of lifting devices, one in their bedroom, another in their bathroom to manoeuvre her about.

When COVID became a threat he cancelled the daily visits of a personal care worker that used to give him some relief. Now he's more challenged than ever for time and opportunity to rush out briefly to do some food shopping while his wife manages in his absence. His own health has had its challenges; two hip operations, open-heart surgery. These are the hidden costs to many people with chronic health conditions whose daily lives have been impacted by the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic.