Our refrigerator has its very own personal motto: never without bread dough. So that, if nothing is planned for dinner, we can always withdraw a snugly covered bowl where bread dough is at rest awaiting an opportunity to make itself useful. For any number of uses, including dinner rolls or pizza. And yesterday it was pizza. During the course of a week dough I've prepared on Friday always finds a use for itself.

We generally use a fairly constant formula for our pizza topping which mostly consists of tomato paste, a mixture of herbs and spices (mixed in a jar that is refilled every now and again; fennel, garlic, sweet basil, oregano, hot pepper flakes and thyme, one tablespoon of each), mozzarella, Parmesan, chopped mushrooms, bell pepper, tomatoes, sometimes smoked oysters, anchovies, pepperoni.

This time my husband suggested something different, a topping that we'd had before and enjoyed. So last evening we shared the kitchen and put together a pizza topped with tomato paste, mozzarella, Vidalia onion, feta cheese, black olives, anchovies, bell pepper and tomatoes. We sprinkle cornmeal over the pizza pan before rolling in the pizza dough, then load up the top. And into the neat little pizza oven, the bottom part of our microwave oven, it goes. Interesting taste combination, pleasing to our taste buds!

After breakfast this morning, Irving drove the truck over to Canadian Tire for servicing; an oil change and whatever else. Then he walked back home to wait for a call that the work was completed. And this time he didn't have long to wait; they obviously aren't busy in the garage. Quite different in the store itself, he reported to me. Long line-ups of people being vetted for numbers, waiting to enter the store and shop, after months of lockdown.

We busied ourselves in the garden, lots of trimming to do; everything has just vigorously outgrown itself in a frenzy of activity hastened by ideal growing conditions; lots of sun and rain. Out came the loppers and the secaturs, and of course Jackie and Jillie, to give direction to our gardening tune-ups. The perfect time to do that kind of outdoor activity, puttering about in the garden, on a cool, windy and sunny day. 

Then the call advising that the work was completed, and Irving retraced his steps back to the garage to pick up the truck. It's been a long time since he did things like oil changes himself, and I'm grateful for that. He's careful and capable, but he's also elderly now, and doesn't need the physical strain of that kind of work.

On his return we set off for the ravine with Jackie and Jillie because we promised the restless little squirts that we'd soon be off, and soon we were. The puppies on the prowl, as usual for enticing new fragrances that tell them interesting stories, and we just happy to exercise our limbs and rest our minds in the cool comfort of the day, swinging through the forest trails.

A good array of wildflowers to be seen; clover in bloom, cowvetch beginning to bloom, daisies soaking up the sun, cowslips and henbane, thimbleberries ... and what on Earth might that be, across the creek on the other bank? Looks like, but couldn't be, could it? ... a Black-eyed Susan! That's absurd it's much, much too early for them to be in bloom yet. But there it is anyway.