We're back again in what is likely to be the last of this season's hot and humid spells. A full week of extreme heat and humidity to match. According to the weather report today was supposed to be an equal mix of sun and overcast but it's turned out to be fully sunny. When it's this hot, all living things seek relief from the oppressive atmosphere. Perhaps more to the point, organic matter begins to reek as it decays even faster in this heat. Which means that the kitchen waste in our green bin kept in the garage begins to smell despite its lock-tight top.

 

It's either a desperate attempt to escape the ambient heat or an irresistible attraction to the odour that draws big black flies into the garage. There's easy enough entry from the garage to the house interior when doors are opened. It is only on these remaining dog days of summer that flies manage to enter our house. Jackie and Jillie know something is amiss when a fly is in the house. We detest their entry for the simple reason of hygiene. Our pups hate them because of their irritation factor.

 

So if a fly enters the house the goal is to exit it, if at all possible, else during the night it will follow us up to the bedroom and alarm J&J terribly. They become restless and edgy if a fly buzzes them in bed. Our role is to see this doesn't happen. Irving hates killing anything, so he does his best to thump a fly lightly, so he can pick it up and release it outside, alive. After our ravine walk today, I heard a light thwack where Irving had a fly sequestered in the powder room. Then a long pause and a harder smack, and finally a really massive thwack. Elusive stubbornness; that fly extinguished its opportunity for survival.

But we did get ourselves out to the ravine in the assured knowledge that we would find relief from the heat and the sun's glare under the shield of the forest canopy. Bluejays have returned. Their high-pitched cries are unlike those of any other bird. In southern Ontario we used to see them regularly. In north-eastern Ontario they're occasional visitors; just passing through in spring and fall. Hearing them is like bumping into an old friend.

 

Chickadees and nuthatches were busy today as well, in the forest. We're also hearing choruses of crickets and seeing grasshoppers leaping out of the tall grasses beside the forest creek these days. And now the forest's squirrel population, black, grey and red are suddenly to be seen everywhere already searching for winter-storage of food. Their presence creates an opportunity for Jackie and Jillie to occasionally sprint after them. The squirrels, challenged, scold and swing their tails from perches they attain in easy escapes.

 

Several years back, the forest ashes were attacked by Emerald Ash Borers and we saw the die-off of many mature trees, both those planted on lawns of houses on the street adjacent the forest, and those growing within the forest. The trees had all the appearances of death, but on the bottom quartile of old trunks, tentative small branches soon began to sprout. The trees above those slender new branches were skeletal in death, but the will to survive evident in live roots urging the growth of hopeful new life. 

 

The cycle of life and death of all growing things, something we witness yearly with the seasons. We tend to appreciate the gardens we lovingly cultivate all summer long for their fresh, attractive presence, their form and texture and colour and the multitude of flowers that enhance our properties and greet our appreciative eyes all summer long. But it's at the tail end of summer that our eyes devour the colour in the knowledge that it will all soon fade, the garden cut back and prepared for its winter rest.