By late morning the  rain stopped, though the sky remained dark with rain-filled clouds. Jackie and Jillie accompanied me outside for a quick survey of what's new in the backyard, and we weren't disappointed. Theirs was the opportunity to race after squirrels as usual, cheekily ripping across the back fence, and I looked about at the gardens to see what was happening. What's happening there is the full bloom of a good large patch of Mountain Bluet.

The dainty Siberian irises got a little battered by last night's and this morning's rain, but I'm sure they'll recover. The more robust bearded irises, on the other hand, looked just fine, they remain sturdily erect with more opening every day. Another early bloomer is now flaunting its presence in the flowering Columbine that are so fond of establishing themselves wherever they feel like claiming space.

Those in the garden are purple, and those in the rock garden are all pink, their flowers quite different from one another. Jackie followed me into the rock garden. When it was young, twenty years ago, it was completely open. Now that it's a little long in the tooth if not the root, things have become a little crowded in there. The Ladles Mantle keeps spreading for one thing, and the happy proliferation of Morning Glories that reseed themselves relentlessly year after year had to be thinned out, at the top of the rock garden.

It's been a busy morning for us, we've found so many things that have to be done before we leave for our trip. Then we found a window of opportunity and determined we'd go out to the ravine with Jackie and Jillie, but had to change our plans temporarily as the sky darkened and thunder boomed. Then down came a copious rainfall of big, fat drops and we waited for the fury to pass.

From the top of the hill descending into the ravine we could hear the rush of the water down below in the creek, wide and muddy, foaming and spurting downstream. At least we have the assurance that the garden is well irrigated and won't be too concerned over the welfare of the plants that are currently thriving.

Everything green that grows and revels in  spring rain is heavily lacquered, green in various sumptuous shades glistening like a precious emerald jewel, iridescent in the twilight haze of a high-humidity day in the forest interior. Here and there blackberry canes are beginning to flower and by the number of flowers we have every reason to expect a bountiful harvest this summer. The raspberry canes are also on the cusp of flowering.

And the mosquitoes, oh the mosquitoes. Devilish little black darts deliberately dashing into eyes; supreme nuisances. And they're living up to their reputation for loving black, although my rainjacket is bright, sky-blue and they still kept coming, great clusters of the nasty little beasts.

Everyone it seems that we know with dogs was anxious to get out with them, and long before their people hove into view we were waylaid time and again by Cookie-Man-aware dogs, thanks to Jackie's and Jillie's invitations echoing through the trails. We saw the first of the buttercups in flower, one lonely, brave little plant hoisting its little golden caps to catch absent sun rays.

And in the distance, as we approached the creek at the opposite end of our circuit for the day, there was a Great Blue Heron lifting off from the spuming waters of the creek, to fly gracefully along the canopy and finally disappear within it.