News, good and bad grips our attention. For months we've been reading of suspicions about the random incidents of rare blood clots associated with the Oxford-Astra-Zeneca vaccine. The experts in the field spoke persuasively of the vast odds against anyone falling victim to the sometimes-deadly clotting, reasonably enough arguing that COVID-19 itself is the cause of clots, destructive and deadly on a far greater scale. Politicians and most immunologists advised that if you're offered an Astra-Zeneca shot not to hesitate, but be grateful for it, in this aura of accelerating variant infections.

And then, new statistics, new research suddenly changes the equation, and some countries begin to suspend their use of the vaccine, preferring the mRNA vaccines represented by Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech. And Ontario too has gone that route. The AstraZeneca doses were in short supply, partially because India, the world's largest vaccine producer, is facing an astronomical number of SARS-CoV-2 infections and a soaring death rate, the consequence of which is that reasonably enough, the authorities there have decided that the vaccines they produce -- India's version of the Astra-Zeneca shot -- must remain within India to aid in its desperate efforts at controlling the spread of the virus.

News out of Israel, being bombarded with rockets by Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists in Gaza, is none too cheerful. Israeli-Arab citizens of Israel were staging demonstrations, no doubt incited by both the PA and Hamas to create destabilization in Israel, against the eviction of Palestinians squatting on Jewish-owned properties in a part of East Jerusalem occupied by Israeli Arabs. A matter between the courts and a private entity.

Israeli police attempting to address the protests, pelted with rocks and incendiary devices. Other incendiary devices attached to balloons released from Gaza on the border with Israel to drift over agricultural fields and forests setting numerous fires, destroying crops, forests and animals. Matters deteriorated to the point where Palestinian terrorists have been sending rockets into Israeli border towns and as far as Tel Aviv. The IDF responding with aerial strikes against Hamas targets. Some of the Hamas rockets fall short within Gaza and people there are killed.

But here where we live, (while deploring the awful news and hoping that reason may prevail even while acknowledging that there is no reason in the minds of tribal psychopaths whose agenda is the destruction of Israel), live an entirely different life in a mixed society where countless languages are spoken aside from the two official ones, where neighbours on the same street hail from origins across the globe and where the country's constitution protects everyone's rights equally under official multiculturalism. That we are singularly fortunate is beyond dispute.

We've enjoyed perfect spring weather today, propelling us out-of-doors continually, culminating in an afternoon hike through the Bilberry Creek Ravine Forest trails we have the additional good fortune to access a mere few steps from our home. The sky today was a symphony of heavenly blue-and-white; just incidentally the colours of the Israeli flag. Whenever the sun shone, it felt like summer. Whenever the sun went in, the wind made it seem like early spring.

Before we'd gone out for our daily hike with our little dogs, Irving was out working on the front lawn, and chatting with our neighbour when they both watched as a raccoon that visits us frequently from the ravine, casually sauntered out of the garage. He had evidently exhausted all the offerings left for him on the porch and felt disposed to see what he could mooch in the garage. 

Cardinals and song sparrows sang for us, both in the backyard and once we were out in the ravine. This morning, the male cardinal along with a sparrow was on the porch, interested in pecking off a corner of a biscuit, ignoring the scattered pieces of cereal beside it. Before they had departed, along came two black squirrels, intent on doing the same. Everyone is glad that winter is over and spring fully entrenched.

We sauntered along the trails, in no great hurry, just enjoying the atmosphere and the landscape that changes with each turn of the trail. Jackie and Jillie sniffle and snuffle their way through the trails, now and again leaving the trail to venture into the woods interior briefly, investigating an intriguing odour they know we know they know they're not supposed to.

With the appearance of the early spring wildflowers, dandelions too have made a showing of themselves, blooming in abundance, the eye focusing on the bright yellow of the flowerheads, not 'seeing' the foliage so unwelcome on lawns. The dandelion flowers are an eye-popping shade of yellow, their symmetrical arrangement of petals, perfectly like that of a daisy's but infinitely more complex.

 When we finally exhaust our circuit through the trails and head back to street level, I pause at the perimeter of the forest to look more closely at the bright pink clustered flowers of a young feral crabapple which had planted itself and had been scarcely noticed until last spring when it first began blooming. The intense colour and the generosity of its bloom cover is truly impressive. And then, walking down the street, from a distance I espie our own two crabapples in bloom, a lighter pink colour and equally conceited.