Munchkin and Mandy

Munchkin is the quintessential introvert. She doesn't want to be seen, let alone noticed. She just wants to be left alone to wander as she will about the woods, free to be herself, a very timid, very small long-haired Daschund. She trusts Donna, and not too many others. But this morning she seemed to almost welcome us as she moved about the trails and in between trees on the steep slope leading down into the ravine.

It's clear she's happier now that Mandy is no longer taking all of Donna's desperate attention. Desperate to try to control a much larger and younger dog than Munchkin, though Munchkin isn't old at all, just nudging six. Mandy was supposed to be kept on leash all the time, and away from people and other dogs. But Mandy had other ideas, as a puppy. She loved people and wanted nothing more than to leap happily all over them, to have them respond to her good-natured, if somewhat overpowering presence.

After all, Mandy is a Labrador Retriever, known for certain traits and Mandy exhibited all the wrong ones for a working dog whose future was to be able to guide a blind person safely and with a keen penetrating focus on that person and that person only. It was a losing battle right from the start. Donna felt she wanted to do something worthwhile, and it occurred to her she might take in a puppy for the CNIB seeing-eye program and in that way contribute to someone's future well-being. She's a nurse by profession and she wanted to extend her humanitarian instincts in this way.

It was a noble thought, but it just didn't turn out well. We'd see her struggling to contain Mandy's enthusiasm and it was a 'no-contest' struggle. Donna is a healthy woman and though not physically imposing, has a certain degree of both physical strength and determination. She met her match with Mandy who quite early on became physically imposing and was certainly imbued with more than her share of physical strength and determination.

Mandy was determined to be what nature intended her to be, a puppy, enthusiastic, playful and loving. Commands were useless, patience unending, but accomplished little. Those walks with Mandy were exhausting and gave no satisfaction whatever. During those months little Munchkin was feeling fairly well neglected. And nor did she want to be around Mandy, either.

Donna and her husband, a French-born oncologist met, where else, in a hospital setting. He is as devoted to dogs and to doing good as she is. But they're also devoted to their daughter, who has lived in Australia with her own husband for years, and they delight in travelling there, sometimes staying for a month or so, particularly now they've got a grandchild.

They were given the option of adopting Mandy because she failed the adaptability and acceptability tests as a guide dog. And they were torn with indecision. In the final analysis they determined that they couldn't take on permanent stewardship of Mandy. And Munchkin is beyond pleased.

The spring that my husband was 64 and retired by then for six years, he decided he would undertake a really colossal job by hand. Not for him the tendency to hire people to do difficult physical labour. Typically, he studied what he was interested in doing, finding background information, deciding how to proceed and then tackling it. This outdoors project was one of those, and there have been many.

He was determined to change the look of the gardens at the front of the house. He wanted to establish a good seating area, functional and attractive walkways and retaining walls to hold the gardens at the very front of the house. He looked around at different types of landscape materials, and we decided together what we preferred, then ordered impressive and frightening amounts of paving stones and much larger 'stone' pieces to construct the walls, and they were dropped by the skidload on our driveway.

First, though, came the outlines of where he meant the installation to be and it was extensive. With the intention of leaving the existing gardens pretty much where and as they were, simply building around them. With that in mind, those sixteen years ago, my husband began the arduous and time-consuming job of excavation, for nothing much could be done without digging down and creating the required foundation for his inspired garden hardscaping.

My husband has never been anything less than ambitious about the tasks he set for himself, not easily fazed by anything, he would study whatever it was, establish his groundrules and then proceed. And I cannot remember one instance or one project where he failed to produce his inspired result. We've been living with those results all our married life, which in total amounts to 61 years together.

As he excavated, there was the problem of what to do with the soil being removed. So we decided not to waste the soil, to take a break somewhat and work elsewhere, to build an extension to the existing garden, and that's just what we did, and in the process moved some of the shrubs, ornamental trees and perennials to the 'new' garden. I was thrilled with the opportunity to extend the garden in such a graceful manner and it didn't take all that long, perhaps a week. And during the process my husband was able to make use of some of that excavated soil. A few neighbours volunteered their welcome of some of the soil for their own gardens.

And from then on my husband worked from May until June daily to complete the excavation to a depth of about two and a half to three inches in depth, including a walkway and new 'steps' to the side door, from the front. The break he took from that backbreaking labour was to take an hour off each afternoon for a stroll in the wooded ravine, up the street from the house. He had years earlier installed a stonework (poured cement) balustrade on our front porch, and what he was now doing was a completion of that initial work.

Copious amounts of gravel was packed into the excavated areas, and tamped down with a head-rattling rented device, followed by sharp sand to bring the excavated areas up to their final height, and then began the job of laying and cutting both bricks and constructing the retaining walls. Everything was cut by hand, with the use of a stone-cutting chisel and a blunted hammer. Neighbours would drop by from time to time to chat and check on progress. They were accustomed to my husband's industry.

Several months after he began this enterprise, he completed it. The gardens were enclosed within the retaining walls and the walkways and the patios were firmly entrenched and patterned to perfection. In the years that have passed we've seen how our neighbours' walkways, professionally installed, have shifted and broken up and required remediation because they'd become unsafe, let alone unaesthetic.

During that same period of time, none of the work that my husband did sank or shifted one iota. We've had delicate mosses with exquisite little flowers growing between the bricks which only enhances their beauty. And we've enjoyed the stability of the entire project and the beauty it has conferred on our property, the exterior of our home.

Although we'd left even earlier than usual after breakfast for the ravine this morning the heat was already palpable, despite a light breeze, and even though we're mostly in the shade in the forested environs. Comfortable enough at first, but by the time we were halfway through our daily circuit we were feeling the heat, and before we had completed out hike we were drenched in perspiration.

We passed one of our fellow walkers whom we don't see too often but when we do it's always in the company of his dog, an elderly Golden Retriever. He hadn't the heart, he said, to insist she accompany him today. She much prefers the comfort of their air conditioned house, particularly since she's getting on in years, he sighed. As for himself, also getting on in years, rationality triumphed over emotion.

We know what it's like when a dog isn't thrilled at the prospect of wandering about in the woods. We've one of each, a male who is beside himself with joyful expectation when he hears the phrase: let's go for a walk. And a female who suddenly makes herself scarce. So while we have to round up Jillie, Jackie is excitedly leaping all over us, begging us to expedite whatever we're doing, and get us all out there, in the ravine.

Oddly enough, once we're in the ravine and moving through the trails, they're both interested in where they are, though Jillie is quick to bark when and if she sees someone else on 'her' personal trails. If it's a human being it's because she wants to make their acquaintance, and if it's another dog, it's because she's leery in the presence of a dog she hasn't had previous exposure to. If it's a dog she knows, it's because she's greeting it, and wants to exchange some canine pleasantry with it.

We came across a young man with his two bull mastiffs, one, the female, is now six months old and it's clear she'll tower over and out-muscle the older male. She'd been cooling off in the now-murky water of the creek, and even drenched she's an imposing figure. Our two much smaller dogs weren't certain whether they were pleased, or unpleased at the presence of the two mastiffs, though they've been in their presence on earlier occasions. Jackie finally decided in the negative when they boxed him in and he wasn't certain of what the outcome might be.

Taz in camouflage mode

They felt far more comfortable when we came across Henry, whom we haven't seen in months, and tiny Taz, who no longer barks furiously when he sees us. Henry had been away, first in California for part of the winter, and then in Florida, to join his in-laws at his wife's behest. Jack and Jill behaved for a change and for the first time that I can recall, tiny Taz was interested in them, sniffing them in a re-acquintance ceremony, after a long period when we hadn't run into one another. Taz, like the Tazmanian devil, is a bundle of nervous energy. But then we can say the same for Jackie, as well.

No potential threats emanating from the size and interpreted-intention of a Chihuahua, as compared to a bull mastiff.

While we were perambulating through the ravine yesterday, a fox ran out of the underbrush across the trail about 20 yards in front of us. There was a time, decades ago, when foxes would just sit on the trail and watch us, as we would walk through the forest with our little dogs. Now, they race through, not wanting to be watched by humans. Their comfort in their natural environment has been shattered with the growth of surrounding communities and no doubt the increased number of off-leash dogs that wander through with their owners.

It's easy enough to gain the impression that there are far fewer foxes around than there used to be. On the other hand, people whose backyards abut on the ravine, unlike our own, tell us that they frequently see foxes. At one time we'd even see them on occasion sauntering down streets hard by the ravine. On occasion it's still possible to see something like that, when you do a double take at the neat, rufus-furred, slender canine walking at its leisure from a neighbouring street directly into the ravine.

At present, we seldom see them, my husband and I, not directly. Rather, we catch glimpses of red-coloured fur slipping quickly across a trail and into the woods and feel ourselves to have been fortunate to see that much. I hadn't seen yesterday's fox, my husband had. By the time he alerted me all I could see was the bracken of the undergrowth under the forest trees parting swiftly as the fox made its urgent way through and away from our near proximity.

There's always a sense of regret, of having missed sighting some impressive force of nature, afterward. We're out earlier in the day to do our woodland ramble this week, again. We're headed into another heat wave, so that seems sensible, to get out early and avoid the heat of the day. In the ravine's environs the forest canopy throws ample shade, to make the atmosphere feel cooler, and breezes help immeasurably to cool us off as we forge on.

It seems inevitable; every July first on Canada Day when celebratory plans go forward and the time comes for nighttime fireworks, the skies open up. Not in a generous acceptance of the fireworks, but to produce their own. And this year was no exception; rather than the roar, bang and pop of fireworks coming from Parliament Hill and around various chosen places for group events throughout the capital, thunder roared in the skies above, lightning lit up the atmosphere and copious rain fell to help in the celebrations, moving people indoors from their outdoor perches.

Long before Canada became so populous as it is now, my parents, as teens, emigrated as refugees to Canada. My mother with her two older sisters from the Ukraine portion of the Pale of Settlement, Russia, and my father from a small shtetl near Warsaw, Poland. By the time I was nearing my own teen years my parents had managed to acquire a house of their own in the inner core of downtown Toronto, a much smaller city than it is now. Those inner-city houses with their brick exteriors and tiny front lawns were somewhat shabby and certainly far smaller than later-built houses, but they all had deep, covered porches.

When it rained, my father liked to sit out on the porch. And if was during a thunderstorm with its alarmingly loud claps and dagger-thrusts of lightning, all the better. He encouraged me to sit out there with him, to appreciate the grandeur of nature, not to fear it, but to respect it. Now, when it rains and there are robust thunderstorms rolling through the atmosphere my husband and I both feel thrilled by the spectacle. And there is no time, as far as we're concerned, when we're happiest for the gardens, freshly irrigated by nature.

It's at times like these that we appreciate the beauty of the garden the most. Not long afterward, whether that same afternoon or early the next morning, the sun will emerge in a clear blue sky and the gardens will thrive, so appreciably we can almost imagine we can see development as we keenly observe a contented garden.

Cool, windy and partially overcast, this was a perfect day to travel, even if our destination was located relatively close by, in Perth, a lovely heritage Ottawa Valley town about an hour's drive from Ottawa. On the way there, we saw delightful displays of daisies, Queen Anne's lace, yellow rocket, purple loosestrife, blue chicory and trailing lotus in sprawling clumps growing within the highway median and its borders in a colourful display of natural beauty.

Our destination was Perth because we intended to drop in to their annual antique show and sale held at the local legion hall, in a lovely pastoral setting beside the Tay River. Perth is full of stone 18th century heritage homes and buildings, a pleasure to view. It's a pleasant drive to get there, and it is certainly entertaining to drive through the town itself, a typical Ottawa Valley town.

As for the antique show, some dealers set up their displays inside the hall, and the spillover does service within tents set up on the grassy property between the building and the river. In that parkland setting there are some wonderful old maple trees with huge trunks and massive green canopies to give shade to at least part of the area.

For whatever reason some of the dealers we've been accustomed to seeing with their genuinely good offerings were absent this year. There was, in total, about thirty percent fewer dealers than we'd come across in previous years, although there was a robust enough crowd of potential buyers milling about regardless.

We didn't stay too long before we set out to return home. A little disappointed in the paucity of worthwhile objects of interest to us.

No real complaints, however, since we had a pleasant drive on a fabulously comfortable summer day, and enjoyed the sight of bison grazing in a field, on our return trip. Our puppies Jackie and Jillie were certainly excited to see these great ponderous beasts.

Today is a glorious summer day. July 1st has arrived untemperamentally, with partially blue skies, lots of sun, puffy white clouds, and a whisper of wind. It will be hot and hotter as the day progresses, with chance of thunderstorms in the afternoon, so we went off for our ravine walk earlier than usual and saw people out we've never seen before.

It's Canada Day, the 149 anniversary of the 'birth' of the country. A perfect day for celebrations. And that is precisely what has begun on Parliament Hill, with thousands of Canadians out to be entertained and share in the general air of enthusiasm that accompanies most celebrations. There will be fireworks, colourful displays of lights and popular entertainment groups on stage to perform.

We had attended one of these anniversaries many years ago, in the mid-70s when we first came to live in Ottawa. Before that, for the centennial year of celebration I recall walking our three young children from our first house in Richmond Hill over to a local plaza where entertainment had been scheduled in celebration of the day.

For the last several days the skies have been hosting fighter aircraft, practising flybys for the aerial show planned for today. And earlier today a formation of jets flew low over the area where we live, quite a bit of excitement, but too swift in passing to catch them on camera. I did photograph the sky, though, and beneath it one of our spruces, and sitting right atop the spire was one of our backyard robins, taking a break from feeding its young.

And if this isn't a day to amble in the garden, do a little watering and admire the flowers, when might it be more suitable, to celebrate life in a country whose ultimate priority and practise is to provide a secure and prosperous present and future for those who have the good fortune to inhabit it? A land of geological contrasts, surfeit with a generous share of the world's fresh water lakes, ample arable land, great mountain ranges and wonderful boreal forests, home to a multitude of birds and animals sharing the land with us.

Black bears digging up ants, British Columbia