After the agony of hesitation when spring was having its usual disagreement with winter, new life is now, finally, springing out everywhere, from the garden to the forest, and we just cannot get enough of it! The Magnolia tree, always ready to delight with its profusion of spring-bursting flowers is outdoing itself this year, and even its little cousin in the backyard is preparing to do the same.

 

We've been given yet another warmish day of 18C, and with it full sun, gleaming and glimmering down on the landscape, promising more, much more to come. In the front garden tulips are opening as well as daffodils, the scilla continue to make a generous show, followed by the Japanese spurge and the tentative appearance of hostas eager to fill in their usual places in the garden will ensure that green will soon replace the blank dark appearance of garden soil.

The grass is growing apace, necessitating it be mowed for the first time and the sweet familiar fragrance of newly-cut grass has pervaded the house through window flung wide open this morning. (They'll be shut this evening given warning of patchy frost and a swift dip in temperature overnight.)

 

On our trip through the forest this afternoon, our eyes were drawn to the early spring flowers. Finally the lilies-of-the-valley are blooming, although not many of them yet. And the sight of horsetails emerging from the forest floor -- my very most unfavourite of forest ground covers -- informs us that in the forest too, vegetation will soon eclipse the wide open appearance of an early spring.

 

Horsetails are decidedly unattractive. They have a habit of colonizing in great numbers, the least attractive of all growth on the forest floor. Ferns, now too unfolding, and false Solomon's seal are also making their appearance. Horsetails, on the other hand, had a purpose at one time, used by scribes as an abrasive to clear scribal errors on parchment, a must-have instrument as it were, in every medieval scriptorium.

 

That was then, this is now, the horsetails are ground raiders, multiplying their presence, suffocating the presence of competitors. Until came along another vegetation-pirate, dog strangulation vine, that gradually and repeatedly pirated ground from the horsetails. But as is nature's way with all her offspring, the vines have diminished in number though remaining moderately aggressive, and in the past several years the horsetails have realized a comeback. At least, WE realized they've 'come back'.

 

 

It was a moderately warmish day, but with full sun, so absolutely nothing to complain about. The trails are nicely drying out and we encountered far fewer mudpatches which is all to the good -- for us, at any rate. And for the puppies; they no longer have to automatically manoeuvre themselves around the deep patches of mud as they're wont to do. Without a care in the world they wander back and forth, one side or the other of the trails, venture shallowly into the forest interior for some serious sniffing, then return to us.

 

 

We met a lovely little puppy, a cross between a boxer and a mastiff, only one and a half months old, with a black muzzle and soft tawny haircoat, smooth and silken. The puppy, name Brandy, was interested, as puppies tend to be, in others of their species. Jackie and Jillie were their usual standoffish selves, but as we stood around and spoke awhile with the puppy's proud owner, the three began to relax with one another and voila! new friends.

 

 

In the last week, lilies-of-the-valley have proliferated on the forest floor, gathering most thickly around the base of tree trunks. And now, finally, some of the thousands of the individual lilies are beginning to show off their tiny delicate bells. Our garden lilies-of-the-valley, much larger than these, are nowhere yet near to revealing themselves.