So many geographic areas of the world are facing prolonged drought situations. In Western Canada longstanding drought conditions led last year to the worst wildfire season on record. And from all indications of the current situation there may very well be a repeat. I read this morning over a leisurely breakfast of French toast that in Kenya, ongoing drought has led to the death of herds of cows. There has been a long association with milking cattle in parts of Kenya evidently, particularly among their pastoral people. Increasingly, and steadily, Kenyans are beginning to change their traditional farming from reliance on milking cows to milking camels, animals equipped by nature to withstand drought conditions.

 

Our area in central Ontario has no such problems with a lack of rain this spring, even though we had a very low snowpack over the winter months this year. Spring rain has made up for the sparse snowfalls. We're never short of sunshine, so it's safe to say, for now at any event, that we're fortunate in having enough of both to balance things out nicely while Climate Change continues to alter normal weather patterns just about everywhere in the world.

We barely managed a quick, short circuit in the ravine yesterday with Jackie and Jillie before the rain which had randomly stopped, started again on our return home. In between rain events the brilliant spring sun poked its way through dense clouds now and again. So we needed both raingear and sun glasses.

 

This morning, no rain came down. One thing about all the rain, it's greened the grass up wonderfully well. The wild rabbit that we usually feed through the winter months along with others of our wild neighbours appears for the first time that I can recall, to be eating our tulips; not the bulbs but the hopeful green spears that appear long before flower heads are raised. We've been looking forward to seeing the bright colourfully insouciant heads of the spring bulbs. The rabbit hasn't touched the scilla and those tiny bulbs are blooming, but I have my doubts about the tulips.

 

There isn't too much at this early juncture to be seen in the forest. Lots to be heard, though. Crows are gathering in little groups, and their calls ring through the forest canopy. On occasion we'll hear the owls in deep discussion with one another, and yesterday we saw a downy woodpecker, while today the treat was a nuthatch and chickadees. New sprouts of green growth are beginning to appear, and the Red Maples' flowerettes are now everywhere on the forest floor.

 

Halfway through our circuit this afternoon, Jillie's enthusiastic barks alerted several of her longtime friends of our presence. Suddenly the pair of Doodlesomethings hoved over the horizon and came stampeding down from an upper trail to inform us that they've unaccountably missed us lately; where've we been? And did we remember to bring along cookies for them?