Ours is a very quiet street with a mix of housing density, a street that gets very little traffic outside of residents slowly driving back and forth. A good street for children to play hockey in the winter and toss basketballs into hoops at the end of driveways in the summer months, riding their bicycles up and down the street. And for dogs to be walked by their persons, who on occasion stop for small talk as they pass neighbours' houses.

Jackie and Jillie haven't had very much experience walking at street level, much less walking in an orderly manner on paved streets adjacent roadways with high traffic volumes. Irving had taken his car in to get an oil change yesterday morning. Instead of waiting for it to be done, he decided to walk back home. Long before he reached home, there was a call from the garage that the car was ready to be picked up.

 

Instead, when he finally returned home (he had stopped first on the way home to pick up several light summer tops for me, as though I need any more), we decided it would make more sense to get out with the puppies for a hike through the ravine. A relatively shortened circuit, because we had an appointment to keep in early afternoon. So off we went for the forest hike, and when we returned we left the puppies !!!alone at home!!! so we could arrive unencumbered to receive our six-month COVID update shot. Evidently wastewater testing indicates that the incidence of COVID is rising once again, and the elderly are returning to hospital for treatment, with some unfortunate deaths among them.

That done, when we returned home, we all set off again this time with Jackie and Jillie on leash to walk down to the commercial business area not too far from our home, to pick up the car. The closer we got to the high-travelled roads the more resoundingly noisy it was. Our two are not particularly good on leash; Jackie tends not to walk in a straight line, preferring little jaunts here and there; left, then right. As the sounds increased jarringly, he kept leaping up at me, asking to be picked up.

Eventually we reached the location of the garage and that was a relief. I sat with them in the car for the brief period it took for Irving to get the work print-out and settle the bill. This morning, he decided he'd take the truck in for an oil change, but this time he waited at the garage for the work to be done, and drove home with the finished truck. And then we set off for our regular ravine hike.

 

Both days gave us cooler weather, quite windy, but sunny. Absolutely perfect for trips through the forest. Just as yesterday, this afternoon familiar dogs arrived bounding straight for Irving for their cookie treats, much to the delight of Jackie and Jillie who always profit from the exchange. The avian forest dwellers are just as pleased as we are, by this perfect weather. The woods resounded with the raw caws of crows, the melodious sounds of robins and cardinals and the distinctive call of peewees.

Although the volume of water running through the creek at the bottom of the ravine is down considerably from the height it attained during the rainy days just past, a Mallard drake was paddling downstream, the very picture of bucolic tranquility, always a treat to see. 

 

We're still marvelling at the spread of Jack-in-the-Pulpits through the forest this summer. We love seeing them. An amazing bloom of blackberry flowers augers a real bumper crop of the berries this year, throughout the forest where they thrive.

 

Later, when we returned home, I finished planting the last of the annuals in the garden; just a few flats, one of lobellia as a filler for the garden pots, the other, wax begonias to fill in areas of the various garden beds where I can see too much vacant garden soil. I enjoy cramming the flowers in to make a continuous embroidery of bright colours everywhere I look. Glancing out doors and windows seeing the full texture and colour of the gardens, simply gladdens my soul.