A beautiful August Friday. Ours, all ours, to do with as we would. We would make the most of it. Our puppies demand no less. They're willing to do all in their considerable power to help us enjoy the day. And so we did, all of  us. Starting from the moment we were out in the backyard before breakfast, to the rest of the day, a partly sunny, windy, cool day, just perfect for squeezing every last bit of opportunity out of a swiftly vanishing summer.

 

Irving was busy. His Friday household chores called and he answered. First off, vacuuming the parts of the house we spend most of our time in. And that gives joy to Jackie and Jillie. They know the routine and they're fully engrossed in being part of it. So while Irving does the vacuuming they hysterically follow, challenging the peculiar object that may or may not be threatening the household occupants. When he follows that up by companioning with another beast even noisier to mow the front lawn they bark from the indoors out the door.

 

 

My chores are mostly in the kitchen, although they're not chores at all. What they are is challenges as in having fun while indulging in magic. For there's magic in combining flour, butter, eggs, cherries, to produce a delectable dessert. First the cherries get pitted, then 'cooked' in a stew of sugar, water and cornstarch to a softened consistency and while they're cooling after adding butter and almond flavouring, it's time to prepare the sweet raised dough.

 

Yeast does the trick here, and kneading the combination, then leaving it to rise in a covered bowl until doubled in size. And while that's going on, a chicken soup is put on to simmer for hours. The menu this evening will be a Caesar salad, with cauliflower, tomato, peppers, lettuce and chicken. The chicken breasts will be barbecued before they're cut up to join the vegetables.

 

Yesterday we had a fish dinner. As savoury as we like it, in a combination of garlic, onion, bell pepper, tomatoes, green peas, cubed sole, shrimp and clams. And the flavour enhancer here is smoked paprika, salt, pepper and saffron. Hot and flavourful accompanied by hot, sweet cups of lemony Earl Grey tea.

When all was done, Jackie and Jillie reminded us that all was not quite done, we were lacking a ravine hike, so off we went to fill in the afternoon with a vigorous hike through the forest trails. Oddly enough the wind that cooled the atmosphere was less palpable in the forest whereas in recent days nothing seemed to shield us from the wind in the forest interior. 

 

The sun was so fierce that as it filtered through the tree canopy it seemed to light up each and every leaf it touched on every tree we viewed surrounding us. Jillie forges straight ahead on the trails and Jackie trails her, nose to the pathways meandering here and there. When we see Jillie spurt excitedly ahead and begin her shrill barks, we know she's greeting some of her friends.

 

Her barking alerts them to her presence and wherever our two little dogs are, there will be the Cookie Man, and in a wink of an eye he's surrounded by his fans, clamouring gently to be 'noticed'; that they're absolutely famished poor things and need an instant fix for energy.  In a successive series of meet-and-greets, Irving's store of cookies are quickly diminished. Not so much the bag containing small cookies but the one with the big-dog cookies.

 

We pass by a copse of poplar trees and I look up, beyond them, at the sky and white clouds scudding past, and so that's where I'd seen that wasp nest several weeks back. I'd forgotten. It hangs directly over part of the trail, from a branch of a poplar tree. Since the time we first saw it there has been a succession of heavy rain events, thunderstorms and ferocious wind gusts. No matter, there it hangs, securely engineered by expert architectural professionals.