It's always difficult to say goodbye to family. Parting truly is sweet sorrow as the Bard lamented. The house seems quieter and larger. Jackie and Jillie don't go looking for the absent ones, but we do in a sense. Life returns to normal. Normal being we two together in the company of our two little dogs. The brief interval of sharing time and space and love with others of our family evaporated into the hugs and kisses, protestations of love, and promises to call as soon as they arrived back home. 

I speedily caught up on stripping beds, washing linens, re-dressing the beds (no, that's for tomorrow), deep-cleaning the 'guest' bathroom and preparing meals for two. I baked carrot cupcakes and frosted them with cream-cheese icing. The cupcakes are stuffed with grated carrot, raisins, coconut, walnuts and crystalized ginger.

While today isn't as humid a day as yesterday, it's hotter at 30C. I had wanted to do a little bit of gardening but at that temperature the backyard is a veritable heatbox. It would be risking heat stroke to stay there for any length of time. When I was out there, Jackie and Jillie followed me up the rock garden, higher at the front of the property and sloping downward at the back.

At the top of the rock garden morning glories shout their blue paeans to the morning sun. And at the very top, behind the gate, a cluster of tiger lilies as tall as I am are in full bloom. Whoever named them tiger lilies might have mean leopard lilies, but no matter. When I was a child the sight of wild tiger lilies in the byways of the rural countryside were common.

We took ourselves out in the early afternoon for our daily hike through the forest trails. We hadn't felt this morning,\ like going out to the ravine before breakfast, which is more sensible in these very hot days. Strangely enough, there were other dedicated forest hikers out this afternoon just as we were, walking their dogs. We assumed they missed the morning invitation, too.

Our shadows were sharp on the forest floor with the sun directly above and behind at a time of day we don't usually venture into the ravine. The slant of the sun directly hitting some areas of the forest where the carnage occurred that took down many mature trees seems more evident, more stark, more present, the wounded forest displaying all its hurts in downed, split, broken trees, limbs sprawled out on the forest floor, the remains of smaller trees they took with them splintered under them.

We usually see forest denizens like snakes only in the warming days of spring when the sun mellows the temperature of logs and rocks and the forest floor. But it seemed that the thermal glow of the sun on a part of the trail drew a little garter snake to enjoy the sun's warmth.

Our presence frightened the little fellow and he speedily made his way into the thicker leaf mass of the forest interior. Once he was well enough away from the trail, feeling secure in its notion that, facing away from us, since he could no longer see (but could feel) our presence, that we too were unable to see his. As usual, Jackie and Jillie ignored the little snake, although they're instantly alert with the movement of any other animal.