May will mark five months since we had our booster shot, the very final day of the year 2021. The requisite five-month interval. Time to re-schedule for the second booster. Doing it through Ottawa Health didn't appeal to us, given our previous experiences with them. You feel like a toy in a factory production line, being stamped for export purposes. All the multifarious personnel involved were invariably helpful but the process was pretty off-putting. All the more so when we were scheduled to appear quite a distance from our home, right across the city.

Apart from which, scheduling with the use of the online program they used was pathetic. Initially, with the very first shot the system was unable to handle the volume of traffic and malfunctioned. The frustration wasn't worth the bother. Irving decided to make our appointments by telephone, and that was another story. This time, we decided, it would be different. And so, this morning I registered online with Shoppers Drug Mart.

Through them we could choose the mRNA vaccine we preferred. With Ottawa Health we were given no option. They were 'saving' the Pfizer vaccine for children, even though they get a reduced dose. At age 85 we figured, since children were least affected by COVID, that the priority would be for the vaccine with the greatest efficacy to be reserved for the elderly and health-compromised (though we're neither...). Through Shoppers Drug Mart we made our selection, filled out all the necessary details, and wham! it's done. Less than a km from our house. Individual appointments where the doses will be administered discreetly, not in a warehouse setting full of people being herded about hither and yon. The date and time of our choosing.

Preparation for a June trip. For today, the trip was to the ravine with Jackie and Jillie, on a cool, windy, sometimes-sunny afternoon. Preparations for our afternoon forays now take less time and fussing about. While it's so cool we'll continue to put light little jerseys on the puppies and light jackets for us, but no boots for them now and no cleats for us. We feel a whole lot more comfortable. 

Yesterday we came across a group of about twenty people walking en masse through the trails. Half were young adults, the other half children who were having a wonderful time running about the trails, hoisting sticks and jousting with one another. Obviously a family Easter get-together and the children were happy, playing with their cousins. Their parents looked pleased with their venture as well. Today, nothing of that sort.

We saw a few more wooden 'Easter eggs' dangling from tree branches. One so high up we wondered who might be tall enough to reach to that height to perform the deed; no Easter bunny we've ever seen could manage that. On the other hand, another newly placed egg dangled a mere three feet off the forest floor; even I could manage that one.

Once again, before we left the ravine we came across the two Mallards. The female was busily dipping for food in the swift-moving stream. The male was steaming ahead unconcernedly leaving his mate far behind in the intensity of her search. Any little goldfish, escapees from an aquarium that had been proliferating in the creek for years, would be prime targets.

We took a different route on the way back up to street level, close to the area that has been designated a pollinating meadow where thousands of wildflower seeds had been scattered a few years ago and last year's crop of Black-Eyed Susans was a ravishing wild-garden of colourful yellows and greens.