Yet another in a succession of glorious, summer-hot, full-sun days that have rescued us from a stubbornly interminable winter. We felt certain only a week ago that the mountains of snow and ice packed hard on the forest floor and up above at street level on the lawns and gardens of homes would never melt, that nature was being somewhat more capricious than usual in withholding warmer days, content to keep us forever mired in an Arctic chill.

Yet now our gardens are emerging, the snow is gone, and the lawns are calling for us to get out and begin the spring clean-up. We will do just that, of course, as soon as the frost has entirely released its grip of the soil, and the rock-solid surface becomes more friable and firm after the thaw. In the meanwhile, the hardscape of bricks and stones and pathways and gardens themselves needed tidying up from all the accumulated twigs and dried foliage and other detritus that accumulate over a winter's-worth of time.

Our two large old spruces at the front of our property verging on the road have dropped an enormous amount of needles and cones and that litter has finally been revealed. After our hike yesterday afternoon I equipped myself with rake, loppers, broom and shovel and set to work cleaning things up at the front of the house. While I was at it, I cut the Japanese quince that the rabbit had nibbled all winter back hard. All the stripped branches removed, there are tiny emerging green buds in other canes.

 

Because it's so warm and dry Irving decided this morning was as good a time as any to clean up the deck floor. So he went about to pick up a roller, and pan and can of weather-proofing stain and now the deck floor looks as bright as when he first re-built the original one. He's uncovered the barbecue, rolled it back into place, attached it to the gas outlet and is threatening to begin using it; the weather demands it. Something to go with the potato salad I've prepared for dinner in this hot-hot day.

 

Out in the ravine, we could see the the Coltsfoot is accelerating its growth and presence, spreading those little yellow smiling flower faces out toward the heat and glare of the sun. We thought the pair of Mallards we'd seen yesterday would still be in the very same area of the creek and there they were, taking advantage of the turbulence caused by the rapids near to where they positioned themselves; the current that resulted, we surmise, carrying all kinds of minuscule aquatic life over to them.

 

The sun illuminated a starkly bare and raw looking forest, the only colour that of the pines, spruce and firs. It will take a while before bracken begins to make its presence on the forest floor and new foliage on the forest canopy, to introduce a spring-summer landscape with a verdant richness. In the meantime, there's a raw look to the landscape.

But there's also a return of bird life. Robins are beginning to skitter across the trails again as they tend to do in the spring. Crows coast the top of the tree crowns, and chick-a-dees and nuthatches flit in and out of the trees. We're impatient to see speedy progress toward a late-spring forest, but nature bides her time. In the meantime, we revel in what we have and what we have is a wonderful turn of the seasons.