An automated email was received by us from the Ontario Health Ministry; we're due for a six-month COVID booster. There's no longer any great rush for the COVID vaccines; people are no longer anxious about getting vaccinated, COVID-19 has become yesterday's story (or at the very least, last year's and the year before's and the year before that). Consequently it was not very difficult to make an appointment for our booster shot; far fewer people are responding. We thought it best to.

 And decided against attending one of those crowded set-ups serving hundreds of people at a time. Not that there would any longer be hundreds of people assembling at any given assigned place, nervously awaiting a shot. We decided on a local pharmacy instead. Their computer system is coordinated with the Ministry's and they have access to our individual records. And so, the deed was done. We'll begin to feel the immediate after-effects by some time later this evening, no doubt.

Another weather-miserable day, and we hope it will be the last in the seemingly endless string (all right; it seems endless, although it's been ?only? a week) of non-stop rain. Our local newspaper is full of flood stories sitting alongside the tail end of the public service strikes. But today there was morning rain, and then it stopped until very late afternoon, giving us ample time to get out for a ravine walk with Jackie and Jillie while the rain was in suspension.

We keep thinking the trails could not possibly get any goopier than we last found them, yesterday, but we were wrong. A mere few hours without rain makes no difference at all when it's been raining solidly for a full week. The ground is well beyond simply being saturated. And it takes dedicated hikers to venture out in these conditions. Jackie and Jillie are dedicated hikers.

There was just one other person out on the trails while we were there, a long-familiar forest trail aficionado whose two dogs came hurtling toward Irving before we even realized they were there. Jackie and Jillie were pleased no end to see them; of course not because they're so fond of the two sitting expectantly in front of Irving, but because they anticipate they won't be overlooked in the cookie handout process.

The creek was as swollen and turbulent as it's been all week. And although the landscape needs a lot of additional coaxing to take on an appearance of spring, a light green haze is beginning to appear over the forest canopy. Trees are slowly beginning to sprout their new foliage, and so are the saplings and the shrubs within the lower story of the forest interior.

More trilliums will begin opening their flowers, and so will the trout lilies and the woodland violets. Early-blooming Serviceberry will also begin their bloom. Colour is slowly returning to the forest.