Yesterday morning's sun lulled us into a sense of complacency, in the belief that the preceding days of unrelenting rain were finally concluded. How wrong we were. As soon as we returned home from our morning walk in the woods, the rain resumed throughout the rest of the day. There has been so much rain the ground cannot absorb it, and the forest floor is steeped with pools and mud puddles.

Each succeeding day's rain events simply adds to the saturation. So the hillside slumps are guaranteed to continue. We did see yesterday the first of the horsetails erupting out of the rich humus that has accumulated over the years in the forest. The absolute least favourite of the plants for me, those primitive horsetails. There was a time that only one discrete patch was present, but over the years they have steadily extended their range, and now cover quite a bit of the forest floor, interspersed of course, with other plants.

I began to notice a hint of competition last year, however, when I noted that the growing proliferation of an introduced species, dog strangulation vine, was edging out the horsetails from areas it had previously colonized. The vine on maturity throughout the summer months can bring down erect plants with its weight and its clutching, smothering habit is no boon for other plants.

In our garden, the heucheras, which always come through the cold months buried under feet of snow and ice, are beginning to thrive. One of my favourites, with bronze-gold foliage, looks in fine shape. It was planted several years ago and as it spreads I will be able to take pieces of it to plant elsewhere as I've done with others of the same type.

The Japanese spurge is now in flower, one of the earliest of the garden plants to do that, other than for spring-blooming bulbs, but even our tulips haven't yet bloomed. I'm hoping that some of the white trilliums that we discovered on a hillside in the ravine far from the trails, will make an appearance in the garden, since I transplanted a few last spring.

Things are coming along very nicely in the garden, so far. Even one of the peonies has, surprisingly, a Carl Rosenfeld type, has already made significant presence in the front garden, I was pleased to note. Right beside it is an old tree peony whose huge, fringed pink blooms are absolutely magnificent, is just beginning to show signs of new life.

We were anxious to get out for a ravine walk this morning and so were our two puppies. We were all skunked out of our usual daily woodland ramble for the past several days. Days of nothing but incessant, penetrating rain. And of course it occurred to us, if not to the puppies, that further inundation of the forest floor already completely more than flush with an unusual amount of rain we've had in the past weeks, might be responsible for further hillside slumps.

There are trucks galore parked on the street, and workers from the municipality busy doing preparatory work for remediation behind the three homes that have been evacuated, with tall construction fencing closing them in.

Emerging maple leaf foliage on maple saplings

We didn't in fact, find the ravine all that saturated on its surface. Yes, there were deep runnels in the trails running down hillsides, the creek was running high and wide, and in places the trails were deep in muck, but much evasive action wasn't required, just care in negotiating uphill and downhill clambers.  And it was good to get out. Jackie and Jillie thought so, too. They were everywhere, sniffing about and happy to be free to do so.

We were surprised to discover pink trilliums in bloom, in the very same spot, unsurprisingly, where we've spotted them for the past three years. These are three trilliums in a tight patch; one purple, the other two pink, anomalies and quite beautiful. New trilliums are erupting out of the soil on a daily basis, and those we first saw days ago are now beginning to bloom, their carmine petals opening to find no sun.

The forest floor in some places looks like a swamp. In those areas we're grateful that the trails are marginally elevated, just a tad higher than the surrounding forest floor, so while the trails are extremely wet, they don't lie within deep pools. If it stops raining long enough all the pools will eventually disappear, but we've got notice of continuing rain on the near horizon.

We also saw the first of the ubiquitous and unattractive horsetails that are now emerging. These are really primitive plants. They were used during the Medieval era in scriptoria, as an abrasive, to rub away errors in script on vellum. That reminder of their usefulness is the nicest thing about them I fear. They don't fulfill any of the parameters of aesthetic appeal in nature's botanical cornucopia, for me.

We could hear, as we closed in on completing our circuit, that municipal outdoor workers were cutting down trees on the collapsing hillsides, in preparation obviously, for some other kind of remedial work. And as we strode along a coll nearing the end of our walk, we came across three of the men reconnoitering the area. Their presence struck Jackie and Jillie as presumptuous; they hadn't, after all, asked their permission to intrude on their private Eden.

Partly perhaps it's a time-of-year series of occurrences in the transition from winter to spring bringing the elements of change into conflict with landscapes, that tend to wreak havoc. It's now a year since the devastating wildfire that consumed much of Fort McMurray and which saw tens of thousands of residents in a panic to drive the sole highway in and out of the remote Athabaska oilsands town of 80,000 people. Before the wildfire, named "The Beast" moved off, shoved more by prevailing winds than the valiant efforts of firefighters both local and from other regions, an estimated ten percent of the town had been destroyed.

Now, in our very own personal location within the perimeter of the nation's capital, we are witness to an infinitesimally smaller, but fractionally less frightening natural phenomenon threatening the homes of a few neighbours on our street. We have the vast good fortune, in our location, to have homes built alongside a large natural forested reserve, a woodland ravine whose geology has kept it safe from property development and which compromises for us personally, a profound boost to the quality of our lives.

But the fact that the entire locality sits upon a vast reserve of land whose foundation is a mix of Leda clay and sand, means that the area is prone to slippage when enough rain falls, to inundate and suffuse the ground to an extent that changes the nature of the Leda clay. When it is saturated and when there is no cease of ongoing saturation, Leda clay tends to dissolve and great instability ensues. The hillside along which the street where our homes were built has been slumping disastrously over the past few weeks. So for those homeowners the good fortune aspect of living alongside the ravine may at this juncture seem elusive.

And where houses were built adjacent the ravine contiguous with it and beyond the high point where the land dips precipitously, the recent rains have devastated the hillsides. Slides taking away the hills in great scoops of descending arcs and pouring the dissolved Leda clay along with the forest that sits atop it, have slumped into the ravine proper, barricading in part the stream that runs below.

Three homes down the street from where ours is located, and across from where we live, have been declared unsafe and in danger. On the weekend, an industrial construction-type of blue-coloured chain-link fencing, about 7 feet in height with no entry point, was installed around the front of three of the homes, to ensure that no one can gain entry to them. The homes have been evacuated. A private security firm has been contracted to have a presence on site.

We've seen trucks belonging to the municipality and to a large engineering firm whose employees, with the help of theodolites have been surveying the horizontal and vertical angles of the areas directly being impacted. The hope being that something can be done to ameliorate the situation. However, given the composition of the soil at its very basic level, the very idea that remedial action can be taken seems a leap too far. Nature appears to have us stumped us on this one, as is her inevitable way.

We have a number of regular and frequent visitors to our backyard compost bins. Twice weekly my husband empties the kitchen compost pail where I deposit all manner of vegetable scraps and fruit skins, coffee grounds and tea bags, eggshells and leftover stale bread, into the backyard compost bins. We're able to keep those bins busy turning that kitchen waste into compostable material once it has sufficiently aged and decomposed, to spread over the gardens to enrich them.

Local raccoons love the freshly-dumped leavings. We long ago learned that it was fruitless to try to prevent them from accessing those kitchen scraps, since they love them enough to go to extraordinary means to access them. And really, why would we want to deny these wild animals, clever and industrious, their treats? So we leave the compost bin lids awry to enable them to toss them aside and enter the bins at their leisure. And they do.

They would, in their efforts to gain entry to the bins, effectively destroy lids and locks, in their fervour. So we save our bins from harm and at the same time, allow those adorable animals to take what they want. And they seldom leave any kind of a mess to be cleaned up afterward, so it's no bother whatever.

Except for the fact that our two little dogs, sensing, smelling, hearing and sometimes seeing the raccoons when we take them out to the backyard, react aggressively to their presence. And since no dog would ever win a conflict with a raccoon, particularly a mature raccoon in conflict with a belligerent but very small dog we do our utmost to prevent any situation where they could confront each other. If Jackie and Jillie begin to react we just order them back into the house.

Usually the raccoons venture out at night, but there are occasions that arise when a juvenile raccoon throws all caution to the wind and comes out during the day and is very, very visible. Yesterday when I happened to take the two little rascals that share our home with us out to the backyard they immediately reacted, barking furiously and attacking the fence across the backyard. I caught a glimpse of a smaller-than-usual form frantically leaving the area of the bins and seeking shelter behind the fence, in a cedar  hedge. I felt badly for the little fellow and spoke encouragingly to it even while I herded our two back into the house.

Encounters of a hostile nature between animals seemingly with little in common is no doubt common enough in nature; each instinctively reacts to the survival instinct with which nature has equipped all animals; in this instance the territorial imperative linked to a food supply.

Yesterday afternoon we heard an owl calling, and watched a sharp-shinned hawk as it settled on a tree in the forest and eventually flew off again. It was a beautiful, mild and sunny day with a crisp wind, just perfect for a spring walk.

 And today turned out to be just as lovely. The woods still look sere and bare, just beginning to leaf out, but the foliage that is creeping into view is barely discernible. There's a long, long way to go. But it doesn't take much time. We expect by next week at this time there will present itself to our gaze a world of difference as the slight green haze will be transformed to a definite bloom of green.

Yesterday and today also we saw pairs of Mourning Cloaks and tiny blues flitting about. And although the trout lilies have spread enormously and there's plenty of foliage, we know from experience that there will be few flowers. We also saw a few more of those shy yellow trout lilies in flower today.

We looked assiduously on the forest floor not yet shielded by the shade that will eventually creep over it with the full leafing out of the canopy and did see several of the purple trilliums in full bloom. They're quite different from the more common white variety that represents the floral emblem of the Province of Ontario. The foliage is different and so are the flowers. The purple trillium flowers are more modest in size than the white ones and they tend to nod, while the white flowers gaze proudly and directly at the sun.

Hawthorns are beginning to evince some signs of life; they're usually tardier than the poplars and the maples. Fuzzy poplar catkins are now fallen all over the ground, alongside the tiny, bright red maple flowers that emerge before the foliage begins to.

Spring is in its stride. The first of the lilies of the valley have begun to poke their slender leaves around the base of pine trees. And woodland violets too are beginning to assert their presence.

A cornucopia of nature's early spring flowers succeeding the presence of coltsfoot.

We continue to zig-zag between sunny days with milder temperatures and full-rain, chilly days, but that's spring! Yesterday the sky was unremittingly blue, a few scant, small clouds appearing now and again, but nothing interrupted the blaze of the sun.

And last night, a raging series of thunderstorms interrupted our sleep. Just as well we revel in the sound and fury of thunderstorms, and our two little dogs only barked tentatively once in alarm, at a very close clap.

Nature loves drama and she's delivering plenty of it to us. But aside from the really significant events, it's the small, incremental surprises that delight us. Coming across the lush, bright green, for example, of a really healthy grouping of mosses colonizing a dessicated old tree trunk.

Or the intricate scallops of shelf-fungus making its languorous home on another fallen tree trunk.

The appearance of coltsfoot in bloom and spreading amazingly. The overnight lofting of the foliage of soon-to-flower trout lilies. And my anxiety to see whether in my garden the trout lilies I had transplanted from the ravine will  flourish. Along with the rare (in our area) white trilliums which we had encountered in a sizeable patch on the slope of one of the hills where there are no trails, and of which I'd taken a small sampling.

And the woodland shrubs like honeysuckle in full robust foliage outburst, with more, much more to follow. The fuzz appearing on the stalks of sumacs. The peek-a-boo presence of slight green on dogwood. We never know, when we venture out daily for our ravine walks, what we'll next come across, but we welcome all of it.

We had always thought how nice it would be to look out our back windows onto the forest beyond. Our house, however, is located on the opposite side of the street to where the entrance to Bilberry Creek Ravine forest is located. We can, to be sure, view the forest looking out from the front of the house, beyond the houses across the street. And now, it seems, ours is the preferential location, though we've always thought otherwise.

When we bought our house, all the houses on the street had already been built and occupied for several years. The builder had reserved one lot and years later, built an 'experimental' model based on a purportedly Florida, open-concept interior design. And this is the house that we bought and have lived in for the past twenty-six years. Its close proximity to the forested ravine has been a delight to us, extending the quality of our daily lives enormously. The drives we used to take to have access to such natural spaces were no longer necessary; our access was immediate and very much appreciated.

But this spring's phenomenon of a long, cold and very wet season has wrought havoc in the ravine, and most particularly so on the hill located directly beyond the street we live on, where houses are perched on what always appeared to us, flat and lengthy properties before transiting to the ravine itself. It had never occurred to us that those houses might be endangered by slides; we had in fact never experienced anything of the calibre of these mud slides previously.

But the slides kept occurring, one after another, taking much of the hillsides with them, complete with forest trees, and depositing them over the creek below. And it seems, after all, that there is a threat to a few houses on the street, backing on the ravine. Municipal crews were out in those three identified backyards performing some kind of remedial tasks, though what they could possibly be against this force of nature, is beyond my guess.

There is no reason for us and others who regularly walk the trails in the ravine, to hesitate about continuing to go out to do just that. Most of the ravine is intact and will remain so. It's just that particular steep grade which was affected -- and some other areas as well, distant from us. Crews have installed a sturdy 'snow fence' around iron stakes to prohibit entry to the area that no mischief-maker will be able to dislodge. 
                          

What else can occur, and how any kind of work to restore stability to the area will eventuate is anyone's guess. We do feel badly for the people involved, to live with such insecurity, when suddenly the ground beneath you becomes unstable and threatens your property. The city should never have given license to the property developers to build so close to the ravine, with the knowledge that Leda clay is so prone to dissolving when saturated. So they are now inheriting a mess that could have been avoided. The liability is theirs, after all. The heartache is the home owners'.