Hard to believe that the heat wave has worn itself out, here. Yesterday's sludgy air quality at 32C with high humidity was a corker, following hard on day after day of much of the same. Each of which was given a 40% chance of rain or thunderstorms, during which time none appeared, to freshen the atmosphere and bring in a cooling trend. But it happened overnight. When we went up to bed it was still 24C, last night. By the time we woke up this morning it was 19C, with the high for the day at 24C. 

Our near neighbours, Mohindar and Rajinder finally had their replacement air conditioner delivered yesterday. They've been without any house-cooling for several weeks. So that's an extra relief for them, with their three grandchildren visiting for the week. We've been coming across them on our early morning strolls through the forest trails walking along with their grandmother.

 

Friday mornings are always busy, and though we had enjoyed going out for early morning tramps through the woods, we decided, given the more reasonable temperatures now prevailing that we could leave our hike through the forest for afternoon today and Jackie and Jillie agreed. Irving had painted the second coat on the mouldings around the passive window in the kitchen, and had earlier when painting the first coat over the sealer applied long ago, removed the stained glass window. This morning he put the stained glass window back in place.

We far prefer looking at notional ethereal glass flowers than we do staring out a window directly opposite a house wall next door. These are views that Irving never found agreeable and his solution was to design and make stained glass to put over the windows in the house. This is why we have colourful views of flowers brightly blooming even in winter. 

I decided to bake a fruit pie, and diced a large peach and a nectarine into a pint of blueberries, mixing them with sugar, cornstarch a little water to simmer into a pie filling which when thickened and glossy added almond flavouring and butter to, then made the pie dough and rolled out the crusts to bake in my little countertop convection oven. I also decided to made a sweet-bread dough with milk, butter, egg and yeast, sprinkling in sesame seeds as I was kneading it. I'll decide later in the week what and how to bake it as; it keeps nicely covered and refrigerated; just a baking short-cut.

When we did eventually hie ourselves out to the ravine, the sky was blue with occasional wispy-white clouds. It was breezy and warm with a cool tinge, quite unlike the day before. Cool enough to wear light, long-sleeve tops. Cooler still once we were in the forest. Where we saw not many people out on the trails, but did come across several of our familiar old hiking friends and their dogs. A few had taken breaks at the family cottage, others had gone camping at Algonquin Park, our old camping grounds.

The serenity of the woods is incredibly benevolent, soothing to minds that have absorbed too much international news of a truly indigestible nightmarish catastrophe befalling people. We don't want to miss anything as we make our way through the forest; little things that attract our attention and bring a sense of wonder to our minds to displace the misery we've read of. 

Our memories fail to serve us with recall of any other year when the forest pines, spruce, hemlock and fir have bestowed so many cones on the forest. Even our oaks of which there are ample numbers, are dropping acorns which the squirrels mostly make quick work of. But it's mostly the presence of pine cones stippling the forest floor in numbers we cannot recall ever before seeing. And the realization that there will be no shortage of foraging material for the forest animals this coming winter.

Although there are always new blooms, they're less plentiful now that the compass plants are hoisting seedheads instead of flower heads. Still, the Himalayan orchids that grow so lavishly among the compass plants, their colours-- bright yellow and luminous pink -- providing a companionable canvas, have turned to white versus pink for the Himalayan orchids continue to put out fresh, perky blooms to grace the forest meadows.