On a hot and humid Friday night, our salad dinner was just perfect. In the winter Friday night dinners are much more complicated affairs reflecting the comfort food we need to keep us warm when it's frigid and snowy out and we've battled the elements in our daily outdoor excursions. Yesterday's salad, my version of a Caesar salad, was more to our taste on these summer evenings, though. I just prepare it in different stages before dinnertime. First off, the croutons, that I bake in the toaster-oven with lots of garlic and Parmesan sprinkled over.

 

 

An hour before assembling the salad I microwave the cauliflower and cover the skinned, deboned chicken breast with aluminum foil to bake it in the toaster oven. Then it's simply a matter of assembling the green onion, lettuce, snap peas, bell pepper and tomatoes along with the cauliflower and chicken cut into little squares. Finally, just before serving a sprinkling of Caesar dressing, and it's done. 

We'll have another salad this evening, a more conventional one, except that mixed beans will be added to it, and French dressing. That gets prepared a few hours before dinner, and refrigerated for everything to blend in taste. While I'm cutting up vegetables, Jackie and Jillie pick up their ears and let their nose lead them to the kitchen, directly underfoot, appealing for vegetable handouts, even when they've just finished a salad of their own.

 

The sun was out first thing this morning, and we were greeted with a much cooler day. Perfect, I thought, for finally getting out to do some garden work. And there's plenty to be done. I've been prevented from getting at it because of constant rain. But sun, that's great, all the more so with cooler temperatures. Then, right after breakfast in went the sun, nudged out of the sky by aggressive clouds.

 

We thought we'd be all right for at least the length of our hike through the ravine. And we thought wrong. Well, not quite; rain didn't begin coming down until we were almost out of the forest. But while we were out going through the trails, there were plenty of things to take our attention. Besides laughing at the antics Jackie and Jillie were up to. Yarrow is now in its element, growing thicker and taller in some places.

 

And to our surprise both Himalayan orchids on the hillside we descend into the forest has begun blooming, and Jewelweed growing thickly on the lower banks of the creek have also begun to bloom. Both are orchid-like, both are dainty given the size of the stems and foliage they're part of, and both are bright and beautiful, a pleasure to behold.

 

I was in a bit of a hurry, anxious not to be out too long, wanting to have some time in the garden before it began to rain. We're becoming accustomed to daily rain events, and no matter when we choose to go out to the ravine for our walks through the forest, invariably rain will erupt, and usually when we're close to the limits of our circuit for the day. It's hard not to linger, though, when we see such intriguing attractions.

 

As, for example, evening primrose maturing enough that its tiny yellow flowers have also begun blooming. Ragweed has restored its flowering state after being devastated by heavy downpours, and the fragrance of the blooms are once again perfuming the air where they proliferate. Burdock is still blooming, and the bees, with all these ready choices are having a wonderful time in the pollinating meadow.

 

Then came the first raindrops gently reminding us that the weather report indicated a 40% chance of rain. So we picked up our pace and once again managed to arrive back home before the skies really opened up. And I grieved and I grumbled that I was unable to get out to the garden to do those necessary and elemental things that keep it tidy and in good shape. But then, an hour later the rain stopped.

 

And out I went, relieved and prepared to spend as long as it might take to get something accomplished. Jackie and Jillie get quite upset when I leave the house. Their pacing back and forth and whining spurred Irving to let them out to see where I was and what I was doing, and then he began doing some of the garden work himself. In the end, working together, though at separate tasks, we spent a few hours in the garden and so did Jackie and Jillie, happy enough to be there because we were.

 

Full disclosure...I didn't use many clams in the seafood paella I prepared for yesterday's dinner because we don't much care for them. Basically, I include a slight handful, more for the added taste they impart to the dish than for relishing the clams themselves. But that dish that I usually include in a wintertime menu, not one for summer's warm season, certainly pleased our palates last night. There wasn't much to scrape off our dishes; in fact, nothing. And the freshly sliced Niagara-area peaches and apricots went down very well afterward.

We woke to a perfect morning today. The air felt cleansed thanks to all the rain, the sun was out and the fragrance of a summer garden that wafted into the house was perfect. Poking about in the backyard it soon became evident that all that rain and the sun that followed soon after each episode was responsible not only for renewed activity in the garden -- roses beginning to rebloom, and the smaller and younger of our two magnolia trees in the backyard was acquiring another blush of large, pink blossoms.

That's the upside, the downside is the proliferation of weeds. Weeds everywhere, in the garden, in the grass, despite regularly digging them up. Spent perennials are crying out to be trimmed and so are the shrubs and trees; we're beginning to walk through the weeping mulberry, not under it now, thanks to great spurts of growth. So,the plan was that I'd get out some time in the afternoon and do some tidying up.

Before that, and after breakfast there's always plenty to do in the house; making up the bed, cleaning the bathroom and the powder room, dry-mopping the kitchen floor. And of course, the Friday baking. Last night I spent a little while pitting cherries. They're available now in abundance at sale prices and with just two of us there's always enough that we don't eat as is, to fill a pie. Irving did the Friday vacuuming and showed me the full cup of grey fluff the new heavy-duty stick vacuum had sucked up leaving us scratching our heads, WHERE does it all come from?!!

By the time we were both finished, the sun had been overtaken by clouds. And by the time we walked up the street to enter the ravine for our afternoon circuit, there were once again warning rumbles. Which meant a short circuit was in order, in the hope that we could get through before a thunderstorm struck. Soon there were a few sprinkles, and Irving shrugged them off ... we'd have plenty of time he said, and this time it was my turn to shrug ... at his complacency.

But on hot days like this where the temperature was supposed to soar to 30C, getting a bit wet could be a relief, and on we forged, Jackie and Jillie only too willing to spurt ahead. Finally, as we neared the pollinating meadow on this shortest of circuits there was good reason to pick up the pace, light rain, the precursor to a serious rainfall promised by overhead thumps began penetrating the humid, still air. Of course the raindrops got progressively more plump and landed with greater certainty minute by minute.

By the time we reached home we were wet, but not soaked. And once ensconced in the garage, peering out at the rain from its dark interior, it was clear we were lucky to have escaped the full force of another deluge. As for my afternoon plan to tidy up the gardens and do some needed cut-backs? Well, that'll be for another day when these daily pop-up thunderstorms take a rest.

 

In my opinion there are few mouth-watering aromas lingering in a kitchen promising a delicious evening meal than the combination of garlic and onion in olive oil along with chopped bell pepper, tomatoes, smoked paprika (judiciously applied) saffron and bay leaf to which will be added rice, small squares of haddock, shrimp, scallops, clams and peas. My version of seafood paella in any event. A meal-in-a-pan that when plated will become a meal-in-a-platter!

 

 

It's really what I consider to be a sumptuous comfort-dish meal for winter, but it won't be difficult to accept it on a 26C, sunny, humid day. Yesterday it was even hotter, more humid, and the rain did little to dispel the suffocating humidity. So a fresh garden salad was in order, along with cheese blini and regional fresh strawberries for dessert.

 

 

There were five loads of laundry today, time-consuming on any day. I don't mind feeding the washing machine, but emptying the drier is the least popular of all household tasks to me, the tedious folding that is involved and putting everything away. Strangely enough I don't mind the ironing that comes out of laundry day.

 

But that finally done, we embarked on our afternoon hike through the ravine. On our way up the street the tiny Yorkie that lives adjacent to the ravine entrance came running over to greet us; Jackie and Jillie almost tower over the little fellow, they're happy to see him and almost bowl him over in their enthusiasm. He's used to them, and compensation is a few small cookies reserved for small dogs.

 

 

The rain of yesterday afternoon and evening combined with all-night rain left the ravine fairly sodden. In the same token the trails become easier to negotiate descending or ascending a long slope where boots grip tiny bits of gravel for good traction. There's a slight breeze, and by then the sun had been out awhile and the temperature, at 26C, wasn't quite as hot as the previous few days.

 

 

The sweet fragrance of ragweed flowers no longer permeates the air, the blossoms that bees were so busy with yesterday afternoon had been made short work of by the pounding rain and the bees had moved off to more promising venues, like the stands of still-intact flowering burdock and thistle.

 

Halfway through our hike along came one of Irving's cookie regulars, Millie, responding to the loud racket Jackie and Jillie make when they know one of their friends is nearby. Her companion was one of the first people we've known for a long time as a regular ravine-hiker whose husband died two years ago as a result of having reacted horribly adversely to Astra-Zeneca's vaccine; his heart gave out fatally. 

 

Years ago there were a number of cats that used to prowl about the area. Their owners would call them in before lights-out for the night and Jackie and Jillie seeing them around the house always took exception to their presence. Time passed and we just don't see them any more. When Jackie and Jillie go out to the backyard they often burst through the doors in a hurry to get down off the deck and into the garden. A drama unfolds but too quickly for me to really identify anything other than that some creature is being chased and our pups have been foiled and frustrated, as evidenced by their sniffing and pacing under the garden sheds. Where a resident rabbit or a chipmunk has slipped away from them.

 

 

They're not very hospitable to others, our two little dogs; territorial aggression is second nature to them. Last night around 11:00, we became very aware of the odour of skunk wafting through the open patio doors. We've got at least one that lives nearby, and obviously many more originating in the forest beyond our street. We catch the occasional glimpse of one, and they're beautiful little creatures. Best left alone, other than to occasionally put out food for any wild creatures in the harsh winter months.

 

Neither of us actually mind the odour of skunk. By the time we went up to bed it had become somewhat fainter. And we wondered what had upset it. A wandering cat came to mind, but then we don't see them any more frequently any more than we do the skunks, so that's a mystery. Mind, we wouldn't much want Jackie or Jillie to come across a skunk with their belligerent behaviour...

 

 

Another warm, but not intolerably hot day today. Heavily overcast all morning and into the early afternoon. As it was when we set out for our afternoon ramble in the ravine with Jackie and Jillie. We hadn't got much further than the entrance to the ravine when I could suddenly feel raindrops on my bare arms and I thought I was imagining it because it looked as though the sun was arriving. Irving had ventured into the bracken to pick some ripe berries for Jackie and Jillie, and by the time he emerged the sprinkling had stopped.

 

 

By the time we reached the crest of the ravine the forest had taken on a dusky appearance and again there was the occasional raindrop. At such a warm temperature, rain, unless accompanied by a heavy wind to cool down the atmosphere wouldn't be too uncomfortable for us, but it would be for our puppies; when they're wet to the core they're miserable and chilled.

 

 

We noticed that the first of the wild asters are preparing to bloom. The Himalayan orchid plants growing among the pilotweed, ragweed, thimbleberry shrubs and raspberry and blackberry canes and thistles on the forest floor are beginning their bloom season. The plant itself grows immensely tall -- about to my height -- yet its bright pink flowerheads are dainty in size.

 

 

The bee activity is impressive this year. We saw honeybees and a wasp-like creature, along with hoverflies in and among the vegetation, and in particular among the reams of ragweed growing high on the banks of the creek. And it was as we were about to cross the final bridge to approach the last hill to bring us to the level of the street above that rain began, light at first but soon picking up momentum.

 

By the time we reached the street it was fairly steady, but still relatively light. That changed as soon as we walked up our driveway toward the garage. A sudden wind pick-up drove the now-heavy rain in sheets across the landscape. Our garden thirstily drank it all in. And ten minutes later, the dark clouds moved off and the sun moved into the space formerly occupied by rainclouds.

 

 

 

It's really difficult to make appointments at the groomers for Jackie and Jillie. It's a hugely popular establishment, linked to the veterinarian clinic we've been using for the past thirty years, as a later addition. I once used to groom Button and Riley myself, a process I didn't look forward to, and that they patiently endured. But my less-than-amateur skills never produced a good job on their haircoats; they might look good for a week or so and then they would appear unkempt shortly afterward.

 

 

What we tend to do is make a year or two years' worth of appointments well ahead when the groomers' calendar is still open, so that every two months they're taken in for a full treatment, and they do a great job. A month ago we noticed with dismay that we had missed two months in setting up their appointments; the time year when it's the hottest and they could use the comfort of shorter coats. Their last appointment was mid-June and they weren't scheduled again until mid-September.

 

 

They already looked pretty shaggy, when we called and asked whether there were any openings, but they were booked right up. Then last week they called back and said they had a cancellation and could take our two in for a regular appointment. That was for today. We drive them over, they recognize the setting, take them in and deliver them to the waiting arms of the attendants. They're placed in a little private waiting room and we can see them through the floor-length window of the room as we leave.

 

When we return an hour and a half later, they're there, at the window, waiting for us, Jackie barking, both of them scrabbling at the window. They've been bathed, their nails trimmed, ears cleaned, and hair shorn and they leap into our arms.

 

Earlier, in the morning, two young fellows came around with equipment to ask whether we wanted our driveway recoated, and because it was time to have it done, we agreed. They first had to dig up the encroaching lawn on either side of the driveway, and today is a hot, sunny and yet humid day. It's hard work. It took them several hours and now we've got to let sealant cure for 24 hours. We thanked them and paid them somewhat more than the agreed price, offered them cold orange juice, and then they went on to the next customer.

 

 

We took Jackie and Jillie out for a ravine walk just after 11:00 am to get a walk in before their 1:15 pm appointment. Up to that point in the day it was cloudy with a 40% chance of rain. After having been rained out yesterday, we were grateful when the clouds dispersed and the sun emerged. Irving forgot to take along his cookie bag, and compensated by picking quite a few ripe raspberries and thimbleberries for our indignant-expectant pups.

 

 

Our leisurely stroll through the forest was pleasurable as it always is. Bees and beetles, hoverflies and birds were everywhere we looked, particularly in the pollinating meadow. Clover has grown there to gigantic size, and the soft pink flowers of the clover plants attract the bees just as much as the Black-eyed Susans do We saw hoverflies on compass plants, red soldier beetles on Queen Anne's lace, and the Japanese beetles that wreak havoc in our garden on clover flowerheads.

 

 

After we delivered the pups to the groomers, shortly after our ravine ramble, we went off to do the weekly food shopping. Although that steady upward creep in food prices cannot be overlooked, it seems to us that fresh fruits and vegetables in season remain reasonably priced, a bargain for what they represent. Niagara peaches are now in, and a basket is under $6, the same for apricots. Regional melons and cauliflowers are available, fresh and beautiful and reasonable.

 

Our weekly purchases for the Food Bank don't include anything like that, however. It's non-perishable food that we focus on; Kraft dinner, canned turkey or ham and tins of tuna, and soups. I'm now down to my last plastic disposable bag to contain all these offerings left in a large steel-mesh container in the foyer of the supermarket. My only choice may be from now on, to begin using the cloth bags for the Food Bank collection, so it's hard to see where banning single-use plastic bags help the environment when it's more costly in energy to produce cloth bags.

 

 

 

Early morning today was an absolute dream. We wandered about the front garden, the sun slanting through the trees, its early light warmth still soft enough to hug the garden gently. The air moved about us with a gentle breeze, already tinged with  underlying heat. Poking about here and there, Jackie and Jillie more or less emulated us pointing out to one another what had opened in the garden to greet us this morning. And then in we went, for breakfast.

Irving went down to his workshop cutting up a pine board for a neat little box he planned to put in place outside just beyond the sliding doors on the deck. We have an electric thermometer that gives us details of the weather, but he wanted a plain old-fashioned thermometer and planned to mount one -- a largish affair -- in the box. Like everything he does, he did a neat piece of work; not a perfectionist by any means but he knows how to handle tools and he enjoys working with wood.

It's cleaning day. Our guests left early to get on with their trip to Nova Scotia. A beautiful day to travel by road, but they'll be certain to meet some weather on the way. Nova Scotia is also in the throes of serious flooding, but they're not heading for Halifax, though they'll only be an hour's drive or so, at Truro.

The day got progressively more humid and hotter, the thermometer stopping just at 29C with an overheated sun. Finally I was finished with the cleaning, went upstairs to change my clothing, and began hearing thunder. When I came downstairs soon afterward I realized we'd had some heavy rain, and there were more dark clouds on the horizon, moving steadily onward.

 

Irving said we'd be fine, the rain had stopped, and off we went. Even in the forest the exhausting heat was prevalent, and as we delved a little deeper into the forest successive waves of heat-drenched air kept rising toward us. Above, we could see the thunderheads quickly moving ahead announcing their presence with loud, deep booms. We'll be fine, Irving said, and we kept going.

But I felt rain begin, and knew it wasn't just dripping from the forest canopy, so I turned around and said we're going back. And we did, in a bit of a hurry as the rain picked up. Walking back down the street to the house those same overheated waves of hot humidity kept washing over us, even while the rain began falling, actually cooling us, a not-unpleasant sensation.

With not far to go to reach home, we weren't completely drenched, just feeling quite comfortable as one does just after a cooling shower on a hot day. Jackie and Jillie showed no inclination whatever to linger in the garden, to enjoy the fresh cool rain; they made directly for the opened garage. It takes a bit longer for their haircoats to dry than it does for our bare skin and they don't appreciate being wet at any time, under any circumstances.

 

I don't have to do much in preparation for our visitors. They're family, in any event, so it's a relaxing and relaxed event. The bed in the bedroom they'll be occupying was made up in preparation for the next visit at the time they left after their last visit. The spare bathroom is always ready to receive visitors. They'll be arriving late because they couldn't get away around the intended time. But it's summer and there's no need to have a heavy winter-type comfort meal prepared to greet them.

 

The last time they arrived around 8:00 in the evening I had a cauliflower/garden vegetable/chicken salad waiting for them and they enjoyed it, so I'm planning on the same meal for them today. Lots of fresh cherries for a casual desert. They called to let us know they were just on the road, and it'll take around five or six hours before they arrive. It's been an otherwise busy day for us, so this just gives us some relaxation time before their arrival.

 

 

Irving was busy doing a few things around the house earlier. There's always something to be done. In this instance he decided to change two of the door-handle sets, one to the living room the other to the door leading to the basement. He'd bought two sets of brass doorknobs to replace a crystal set at the living room and a black wrought-iron one to the basement. The former was annoyingly loose, the latter annoyingly unaesthetic. These were actually doors that Irving had installed himself many years ago, in our originally open-concept house.

 

It's turned out to be another blazing-sun-day, so ample heat, lifted somewhat by a cooling breeze, but not if you're out in the sun for any length of time. Irving had decided to do some hand-weeding on the front lawn, so that's pretty direct exposure. He's disappointed in the condition of the grass that he invested so much effort in re-seeding time and again, laying down new soil and seed and nurturing it to no avail. The garden beds, in comparison, are relatively carefree.

 

In the afternoon we set out to explore nature's garden in the forested ravine. Jackie and Jillie are familiar with every square inch of the forest floor and everything that grows upon it, given their daily jaunts through the forest trails since they were puppies. Once under the canopy of the tree mass, we're treated to the shade and it makes quite a difference. The breeze had decided it would remain up at street level when we descended into the ravine.

 

Passing an immature wild cherry tree we were somewhat surprised to see that the cherries have already turned red-ripe; last time we saw them red hadn't yet entered the picture. We came across another little patch of purple coneflower growing amongst the thicket of nettles and burdock, thistles and pilotweed. Because they're a cultivated flower whose seeds had somehow entered the forest confines their presence is a surprise. They've become part of nature's tangled summertime garden in the forest.

 

Taking their place amongst the goldenrod, ragweed, mullein, daisies, fleabane, and clover. The mullein tends to grow mostly along the banks of the creek in areas we can't really approach given the thick press of the undergrowth. We can see jewelweed growing along the lower regions of the banks as well, not yet in bloom and equally difficult to reach since it would mean balancing ourselves carefully on the rough rocks that line the creek bank.

By the time we returned home after our ravine hike, we were feeling fairly heated. It's the time that we rest awhile in the gardens, look about and take a kind of inventory of what's blooming, what could use some attention, and generally appreciating the form and colour of a garden that has contributed hugely over the years to our summertime pleasure.

 

I really enjoy taking photographs. I never did take any before the advent of the digital cameras; I left it always to Irving. To, in a sense, pictorially document our lives. So we have photographs that are very old, of course, long before coloured photography was even invented. They've been kept in photograph albums that are now almost 70 years old. Photographs of us before we were married, when we were still in our mid-teens. Photographs that predate that era, of when we were young children, of our parents when they were middle-aged, of relatives now long gone.

Our wedding photographs, professionally taken and memorialized in an ornate, white-satin-bound album, has been falling apart for decades. Albums that followed and are also of that vintage have also not stood the test of time. Where photographs of our children as infants and in the various stages of their childhood have been housed for many decades. They're sixty years old. In there are also photographs of our siblings, of their weddings, of family events.

I was looking through one of those old albums trying to curate certain photographs that I meant to copy and send by email to a relative. And looking at the photos of us when we were young parents, both of us found it odd, to view ourselves as we appeared so long ago. In fact, we hardly recognized ourselves. Actually, I recognized Irving well enough, but not myself. I hadn't realized back then that this was what I looked like. And nor did he, he said I had been beautiful and, he added, still am -- at age 86. That little bit of diplomacy.

I knew we had an album bought before the digital camera came to live with us, that had never been used. It has sat among the countless albums filled with photographs for many years. I doubt anyone even manufactures photograph albums any longer. So I thought that I'd set a task for myself, remove all the photographs from the albums that were falling apart and place them in the never-used album.  I'd do that, I told myself, on our return from our afternoon ravine circuit.

 

We were presented with yet another beautiful midsummer day, not hot, but mostly sunny and a brisk, cooling breeze. Jackie and Jillie know it's a Saturday, because they recognize the days of the week by the kind of after-breakfast treat they're accustomed to. Because it's a Saturday they also know we'd be getting out earlier than usual, so they were prepared. As I changed upstairs, they ripped through the bedroom in a pandemonium of exuberant expectation, leaping from loveseat to bed and racing one another into the bathroom, skidding on the rugs and exasperating me in the mess they leave behind. On the other hand, their spontaneous joy and rip-snorting activity is so hilarious, they're excused.

 

In the ravine we were surprised to see the presence of a purple coneflower plant flowering among the tall, thick bracken on the forest floor. Vying with the still-flowering thimbleberries and newly-flowering pilotweed for flamboyant admiration from us. A stray seed picked up by the wind from nearby gardens, or even someone carrying the coneflower seed in on their boots, who knows? It's delightful to see it.

Once under the forest canopy the sun's warming rays were modified by the breeze, the trail underfoot still damp from yesterday's rainfall, and we all loped alongside the creek, taking our time. Then up to the ridge above the creek, watching Jackie and Jillie minutely inspect all the vegetation and linger wherever messages were left by their friends who had been in for their own forays through the forest earlier in the day.

 

While up on the ridge, Irving heard a duck, and then once again, although we thought they had all since departed a month earlier. Then we heard one of the barred owls calling. A half-hour later as we approached the pollinating meadow we watched as three woodpeckers flew through the stand of trees before us, a mature pair of pileated, and with them a juvenile almost the size of its parents. At our distance we could make out the bright red cap of the male, and in a moment's time they all flew off.

 

At the pollinating meadow Irving found ample tiny wild raspberries to pick, and a handful of ripe-and-ready thimbleberries. Jackie and Jillie wait patiently until the picking activity is completed, then offer their expertise in taste-testing to liberate the berries from Irving's palms.

By the time we complete our circuit and amble down the street to our house, we feel hot and exercised. Time to linger briefly in the garden, to sit awhile and look about at the floral display, pleasing our aesthetic sense of garden culture.

 

I did, later, spend a frustrating hour trying to remove those old photographs in an intact state from the destroyed albums. The thick, boardlike pages of the albums are covered with a sticky material that held the photographs in place. Peeling the photographs off the sticky boards was time-consuming and the result not completely satisfactory; a few tears here and there. Then tucking the photographs into the clear plastic 'pockets' of the unused alternate album was itself an exercise in frustration.

I finally left the task half-done; retaining those parts of the old album still useful, and adding the new album to those that stood in the storage cupboard, telling myself I'd return to the job another time, and complete it -- knowing I likely won't.