This has been a busy day for me. So much to do. But it all got done. And life is good.  Even if there's frost again in tonight's forecast. Which meant, of course, that everything that's been planted to this point in the long Victoria Day weekend which is meant to signal the 'all-safe' for planting when danger of frost has passed, is a little off. Not that this is unusual. Most intelligent people wait until after the weekend, say the early days of June even, before committing to planting annuals.

We've had snowstorms in May and early June on occasion. This is Ottawa. One of the coldest, snowiest capital cities in the world, after all. I've never heeded the warnings. Consequently have had to take protective measures when a spate of warm, sunny days convince me that it's safe to plant and who wants to wait anyway and having to cover garden pots full of tender annuals with unexpected frost warnings that invariably ensue.

We've got so many garden urns and pots now, the collection of over thirty years' worth, that it's far more convenient to really soak them, and that probably protects them just as much as covering them. So that's what I did this afternoon after cleaning the house and taking Jackie and Jillie for a hike through the ravine. Truth: it felt good to be out doing that. And poking about the flowerbeds, scrutinizing progress. Like our much-appreciated hostas beginning to fill out the hosta bed. Although we've got all kinds of hostas sprinkled about the garden elsewhere.

When I was finished with the watering, I realized  how overgrown the ornamental Jade crabapple has become. Actually the two other trees, the Sargenti crabapples on the other side of the house are also badly in need of trimming. But they're so large and tall now it's a difficult job. We actually need to get a professional arborist in, but it isn't likely we will. I went ahead anyway and did a little trimming. The Jade is so packed with blossoms, a white-petal rain was created while I was snipping branches.

When we were out in the ravine, there was an odd warm haze, as though the day was warmer than it actually was, and the sun was shining through an ivory mist.  The combination seems to be appreciated by mosquitoes and they were everywhere. All the more so when I hovered over a plant to take a photograph when they converge rapaciously.

The forest poplars are now propagating, sending their seedheads in delicate fine-silk-threaded clumps through the atmosphere. There's so many of them they land on your head, your face, obscure your vision. At least they don't draw blood. By next week there'll be accumulated piles of them on the forest floor, resembling nothing so much as snow.

Part of the way through my Monday cleaning ritual, I stopped between the vacuuming and the floor-washing to put together a potato salad for dinner on such a warm and sunny day. I had gone out to the garden in the backyard to snip fresh chives and parsley from the maturing clumps in the garden. Irving had done the same thing yesterday when he made a salmon salad for us. I thought devilled eggs would go well with the potato salad, and while I was at it, added a tin of tuna. And then I didn't have to think about dinner any more and went about completing the cleaning.

It's the dusting that takes forever. Much longer than the vacuuming. As for the floors, they're the least irksome part of the cleaning process. I start with the powder room, then go upstairs to do the bathroom off our bedroom, then back downstairs to the foyer and from there to the breakfast room, then the laundry room, and finally the kitchen. It takes no time at all washing floors, compared to the dusting. And there, done for another week!