Our Sargenti crab trees in flower

The day started out hot yesterday and then got HOT. We knew though, that there was rain in the offing, thanks to the weather report. So our response is always to get our hike through the forest trails in early to both beat the heat and the incipient rain. There was a report of the possibility of thunderstorms. So we would avoid that, too. As much as the refreshed tree canopy can shield us from light rain, it's too much to expect that it would keep us reasonably dry in a fierce downpour. 

We entered a forest already sodden from previous days' rain. But the sun was out and heating up the atmosphere toward a really hot day. Like-minded hikers were out on the trails, anxious to get out with their dogs for some recreation and fresh air, and just as anxious, like us, to avoid encountering a storm. In some areas of the forest there was little presence of mosquitoes, and in others they came barrelling toward us in force.

But we were busy watching Jackie and Jillie veering left then right, then into the forest interior to sniff out what's happening. Sometimes there are things that appear to alarm them and we see them comically rearing back on two hind legs, then return to the spot as though determined not to let any near-invisible creature get the better of them. 

Whenever someone else's dog espies Irving or hears Jackie and Jillie 'expressing' themselves, there's a beeline for the Cookie Man, long before its human companion hoves into view. A condition that our two have finally come to terms with, fully understanding through happy experience that if cookies are being doled out their own great hunger for treats won't be overlooked. The more frequent these encounters, the jollier the hike is, from their perspective.

As often, people passing one another stop for the briefest of intervals to exchange greetings, and sometimes they also alert others to the presence of a creature well worth looking out for. Yesterday a young man insisted on backtracking so he could show us the precise location of where it was he had seen an owl. It was actually the very location that a few days earlier another friend had taken us to, only on that occasion it was the nest in a cavity of a pine hosting owlets with the mother owl caring for them.

This time the male was in full view, perched on a branch across from the tree hosting his mate and their owlets. He swivelled his head as we watched, our own heads upraised, as though he was just as intent on viewing us as peculiar creatures as we were him. As we stood there, marvelling at his size (the light on a sunny day looking directly up under the tree canopy doesn't much help in distinguishing details, but we felt fairly certain he was a barred owl, not a great grey; we tend to see barred owl on occasion in the ravine, year after year) we saw a crow fly by, perch and sidle close to the owl.

The two species are at war with one another. Often, the way we can identify the location of an owl is by following the whereabouts of a racket that groups of crows make as they harass an owl. Owls can be pretty fierce; their talons, meant for grasping and flying off with unfortunate little furred or winged creatures are formidable weapons, as are their beaks, along with the advantage of their size. But crows only attack when they're in numbers and take the advantage that group security gives them.

While a murder of crows is fully capable of killing an owl, owls, as raptors can carry off a lone crow. They're natural enemies because nature has seen to it that owls are a threat to crows as a source of food. Crows obviously feel justified in defending themselves to the death. Both species are highly intelligent, but they are also following the survival instincts that nature has endowed them with.

We found the forest floor still recovering from rain events of previous days. Lots of pools of standing rain water. The forest is so steeped in moisture it just is unable to absorb any more, until at some point a dry spell comes around. And don't the mosquito larvae have a fine time developing in those stagnant ponds? We haven't yet encounter black flies, but it's the running water of the creek at the bottom of the ravine that acts as their nurturing habitat.

 

Our generous combination of rain and sun has hastened newly flowering trees in the forest, primarily wild apple and hawthorn trees. And now the wild cherry trees are also achieving full blown, the understory of dogwood shrubs right behind them. Once the progression of flowering begins in this season of vegetation making a start on their purpose in life; the production of fruit, they seem to gallop along to maturity.

There were a few trees that came down in the past few days, thanks to conditions of wind and rain. We sidestep them when they fall across the trails until eventually someone with a chainsaw living nearby fancies doing a turn as a logger, or the municipal parks department is alerted and comes along for a clearing-up job. After yesterdays fierce storm it will be interesting to see how the forest fared. Plans to get out today were foiled by all-day rain.

As spring progresses, its earliest wildflowers are seeing the end of their annual showtime. Trilliums, not in particularly great abundance this spring, are now beginning to fade and won't be around much longer to add colour to the forest floor. As they fade, the lilies-of-the-valley are now springing their little flowering wands up from their centres, but they're so tiny and delicate most people would never notice their presence.

When we returned from our hike later in the early afternoon, my intention was to finish planting the annuals we'd assembled. So that's what was happening when we heard a distant rumble in the still-clear sky on a day so hot I wore the lightest of summer dresses as I planted. I managed to get a few begonias and a fuschia into place in garden pots, and suddenly those bass booms were right overhead and heavy drops of rain began falling.

Into the house with us, and just as suddenly it became dark, then darker yet until the outside was actually black. And with its arrival a company of heavy rain splashed against the windows. While there was no wind earlier in the day, just as suddenly ferocious winds accompanied the rain, lashing everything in sight, swaying trees and pouring accumulated rainwater off roofs.

I watched from the front door as the wind-driven rain swept through the landscape, lightning and thunder enhancing its total effect, inundating us with rain, sporadic bursts of brilliant light, and a dramatic orchestral accompaniment. As I stood there, the outside lighting that had cast its own revealing light onto the dark exterior suddenly blipped a few times, and then went out and the darkness was complete.

The storm raged for an hour or so, then gradually stopped, the rain that still fell lighter, until the storm fully passed. Then the sun returned. The temperature had fallen a mere 5 degrees from a humid 27C to 22C, but that 22 degrees was cool with penetrating wind. Still, the sun came out of the cleared heavens, beaming down on the drenched landscape and lighting up the house suddenly deprived of lighting power.

We spent a quiet, dark evening from four in the afternoon to eleven at night, able to read for as long as the natural light lasted, then resorting to wax candles and the use of a 19th century oil lamp for shimmering light.