Good news for us this morning. Our oldest son called to let us know they're heading out finally to Nova Scotia, to spend some time with his mother-in-law, still living in her rural farmhouse on her own, now 90 years of age. They'll stop in with us for a bit before driving out to Truro, then spend more time with us on their way back to Toronto. It's been far too long that anyone has been able to go about with any degree of confidence in the jaws of the global pandemic. We're on our way to normalcy or as close an approximation as is feasible.

Busy this morning with baking. Decided to bake date squares for a change. I put the dates on to cook prior to mashing them, and then promptly forgot them, as I busied myself with the ingredients for a chicken soup, and rolled out bread dough for dinner crescents, then made up another batch of bread dough to refrigerate. I took a break to have a look at what's happening on social media and got carried away. Next thing I knew I smelled something burning.

Sure enough, the 'forgotten' dates had bubbled up over the pot lid, down the sides of the pot, onto/into the burner and made a horrible mess. The dates themselves were fine, I just had to add some cranberry juice, butter and vanilla essence, then proceed with the flour/oatmeal/sugar/butter base. And then scrub the burner of the carbonated mess that had accrued on it. Sometimes, it's all's that well that ends.

We've got another cool, mostly sunny and breezy day, just perfect for a good, long round through the forest trails. So that's where we went when I cleaned up the kitchen, tagging after Jackie and Jillie. We discovered that Yarrow is now in bloom beside one of the trails. And of course Queen Anne's lace is also beginning to bloom. Everything is so early this year it's quite unbelievable.

So early that when we stopped at one juncture close to the outtake of the ravine's creek, Irving headed right over to a patch of raspberry canes directly in the sun where he had found some ripe berries last week. More ripe berries today, and Jackie and Jillie were beside themselves with joy over those bright red little jewels of taste-sensation.

We had earlier come across a group of teens on bicycles heading for a part of the trail system we know well and tend to bypass. Asking if they're familiar with the trail, which they weren't, Irving discouraged them from taking it, recommending they stay on the main trail and then make their way over to another trail which is challenging enough, but doable, and they took his advice. Had they continued where they had tentatively headed, they would have been forced to return to where they stood then, the course they decided on far too difficult, the terrain extremely rough and sharply hilly, the ascents and descents at a steeply difficult angle for bicycles.

Continuing along close to the creek on our return trip our eyes literally boggled at the sight of Black-eyed Susans spread out on the opposite, unapproachable side of the waterway. In the past several years wildflowers have proliferated wildly, the result of some necessary deforestation in that particular sloped area where remedial work was carried out after the ravine hillside collapses. Trees were replanted and normal regeneration of trees like poplars has begun, but in the interim there are clear spaces where ground vegetation has soared.

And there a wide profusion of wildflowers grow, some in bloom, some later to bloom as summer advances. In the meantime, there are so many huge stands of Black-eyes Susans, daisies, henbane, clover, ragweed, nettle... Some of the plants, the ragweed, nettle and Black-eyes Susans have grown to my height and more. Irving took a photograph of me standing in a group of Black-eyes Susans, but the flowers go on and on and on as far as the eye can see.