Though they're dead-weights and they look as though they're made of stone, the garden urns we've had for decades are poured cement. They were done by a local artisan who specialized in them. He travelled to Italy and brought back moulds that he used to produce these classical-era-design urns that we just love to see in the garden. He lived semi-rurally, and we'd delight in visiting him, the deep backyard of his house full of the statuary, urns, fountains, benches and tables he produced. 

 

 

 

/Occasionally we'd buy a piece. We'd drop by often enough that he knew us. We asked him once whether he would produce 'stone-rails' for us if we gave him the dimensions for our porch, and he agreed. He had done this for large stately mansions and it was a specialty of his. Once they were all completed in the design we had chosen, we picked them up and Irving installed them. Neither of us can recall whether this was before or after Irving excavated the space around our garden at the front of the house to lay down gravel and stone dust and finally, to build the garden retaining walls and install the brick walkways. That was decades ago.

 

Some of the urns are showing their wear. We haven't always covered them to protect them from the harsh winter weather we get in this area, but we have the last few years. Even so, some of the urns are showing perimeter cracks and it's distressing. Irving has used the leftover construction cement he relied on when he was building the garden infrastructure to mend the cracks in hopes we can prolong the life of these objects we treasure.

 

The artisan we had visited so often in the past is long gone. A suburb was built up around his home and he sold his property. His wife had died a few years earlier, and he was too old to continue this heavy industrial-type work. Their son who helped out in the business had other ideas for his own future. So as far as we're concerned objects of that quality are no longer available for people of relatively modest means.

 

When Irving was finished, after I had finished myself baking a pan of lemon squares with a shortbread crust, putting on a chicken soup for dinner, and some other pre-preparations, cleaning up the kitchen, bathrooms, bedroom, Jackie and Jillie told us firmly that was quite enough. We had other obligations and they were waiting for us to fulfill them. We were persuaded.

 

So to the ravine it was. It had been cloudy most of the morning, but when we set off for our afternoon hike through the forest trails the sun came out and the atmosphere turned suddenly closer to hot than warm though it was 25C and breezy. Once under the forest canopy that changed, however, and we were as comfortable as we would want to be. A really beautiful summer day yet again. 

 

We could use some more rain. That can be seen by the state of the forest floor. Widening cracks appearing here and there. Trees dropping leaves. Poplars in particular drop leaves in midsummer, leaves that have already turned surprisingly red, orange, yellow. There's colour everywhere, from ripening raspberries to flowering thimbleberries and thistles too now in flower, and pilotweed on the verge of doing so.

 

Now and again Irving would stop briefly to monitor the ripening state of raspberries and occasionally come away with a scant handful to dole out to Jackie and Jillie. We took an alternate trail today that leads us to a deeper passage in the ravine that is often too muddy and we bypass it. The trail down there was dry, but one of the tributaries of the main forest creek runs through it, now free of running water and in its place is muck. 

 

Dog pawprints can be seen imprinted in all of that muck. Nothing like paw-cooling mud to send a dog into rhapsodies of happiness. A pleasure that eludes Jackie and Jillie. It simply fails to appeal to them. And we're just fine with that. While we were down there, along came a young Labradoodle, joyfully popping in and out of the muck. Alternating that with chasing after Jackie and Jillie, who failed to appreciate that unwanted attention. As for us, we were grateful the little fellow focused on them and not on leaping up at us; his entire half-body and legs top-to-bottom were black with muck, his blonde hair above the slicked-down mudline fluffy and clean.

His human followed soon after, a young woman wearing a lovely summer dress. Laughing and delighting in her puppy's antics. Knowing from experience it just wouldn't be possible to calm him while he was in t he throes of ecstasy; delving into the mud, and half-rolling in the detritus, racing after Jackie and Jillie, then back to the mud again...