It's the oddest visual phenomenon when we're out on the forest trails early in the morning. The sun sits at a different angle and height in the sky entirely and what results is a huge variant on what we're accustomed to seeing in the ravine. Not only must our eyes adjust to the difference, but my camera, taking photographs, reacts differently as well.

There is a pervasive gloom that lingers deep in any forest setting, when a darker shade is very evident in the landscape as you delve into the woods. Once within, the embrace of darkness tends to dissipate for the most part, though you remain aware that you are in deep shade. Colours are still vibrant but they take on a much darker hue. Just as they do when you approach the woods after a heavy rainfall.

Yesterday morning we launched ourselves even a little earlier in the morning than has become our resort on these very hot and humid days. Rain had burst into a frenzied downpour during the night and once again before dawn. So that when we were out in the woods the rain event was still fairly fresh. Enough so that wind gusts brought heavy droplets down on us, shaking them off the foliage above.

Foliage on the forest floor, like that of tiny oak saplings with their outsize leaves, and Engleman's ivy, were slick with rain, shining from the diffused light that came through the forest canopy from the overhead sun. Ah yes, that overhead sun, coming in at a morning slant, is bedazzling in its brilliance. It sends hard bright shafts of light through the tree tops filtering through foliage-covered branches to virtually blind us as we progress along the trails.

Photographs come out in stark contrasts of dark and light and they're often kind of fuzzy in between. These colour contrasts leave an impression of arcane mystery playing games with our vision and our emotions in their autonomic response to the primitive within us equating darkness with potential danger, and reprieve with the light that confronts the darkness.

All of which add a quotient of fascinated frisson to the experience of venturing out at that changeable time of day.

Years ago when we were still  in the workforce and used to come out often at night for a ravine walk, the really odd phenomenon of plunging into the ravine and immediately realizing that the atmosphere was suffused with a soft, bright pink light enabling us to see details of the woods perfectly, appeared as a peculiar opposite of what we are now experiencing. In winter, the snow-covered ground reflected the pink ambient light and it was as though we were traversing a fairyland.

For at least a month we were truly impressed and wholly appreciative of the fact that on our daily jaunts through the forest trails in the ravine there was  a surprising absence of mosquitoes. Which meant we could breeze through our circuit without having to even think of being wary of the presence of those awful bloodsuckers, and having to automatically slap them away constantly.

Because we're back into hot and humid weather and no longer in a state of drought, things have changed. The dry heat discouraged the mosquitoes but I'm sure that Damselflies and dragonflies had no problem finding substitutes. How things have changed in the wake of days of thunderstorms and overnight rains interspersed with more than ample sun.

The oppressive heat has meant we've been going out to the ravine before breakfast, showering when we get back, and then relaxing over breakfast, after having first enjoyed watching Jackie and Jillie romp through the woods. Yesterday morning ravenous mosquitoes attacked us relentlessly. At this time of the summer the large, clumsy mosquitoes which are the first to present themselves in spring have disappeared to be replaced by tiny, sneaky-swift mosquitoes whose bite leaves a burning feeling after its quick attack-and-departure routine. They're gone before we can even swat them.

Just as well there are other things to divert our attention. Like seeing the incredible sight of poplar leaves on the forest floor turned bright pink -- long, long before fall is due to set in. A jolt of reality, a reminder that summer doesn't last forever, enjoy it while we can, mosquitoes or not.

On the verge of the forest, pilotweed is thriving, its bright yellow flowerheads happily glancing up at the sun. And there's jewelweed in bloom selectively, resuscitated from a state of near collapse by the advent of rain interrupting a long period of summer drought. And of course, those tall, stately sunflowers that also make their presence in the forest, their golden heads echoing the bright glare of the burning sun.

The rewards of a woodland stroll always outnumber the inconveniences that occasionally pop up, like slushy, muddy trails, making progress uphill and downhill a little tricky, and like the presence of mosquitoes to detract from the bliss of being part of the landscape, however briefly. Our two little dogs certainly agree.

When we take our daily walks through the forest trails of the ravine close to where we live it recalls to mind often when we see any number of wildflowers in season that many of them had recognized medicinal properties and many were also gathered for table use, as edible plants.

There are still people who will roam through the woods to pluck mushrooms to take home and prepare with their meals, but they'd pretty well have to acquire the skills to recognize which are edible and which are not. We've come across some of those people occasionally. Canadians don't tend to be as interested in or skilled as Europeans in the tradition of foraging in the wild for food.

When we come across seasonal wildflowers and other forest plants we are curious about them but never, with the exception of the wild berries and apples that are ripe in season, make an effort to discover their edible or healing properties. We may be curious, but the effort and the incentive is lacking, given the easy availability of all kinds of whole foods in a country that can boast it is capable of agricultural abundance in growing grains, fruits and vegetables, pulses of all kinds.

Yesterday we came across just one wild parsnip plant, another that had been more mature had been smashed down by someone, which in a sense is a pity, but on the other hand because some people are extremely sensitive to the oils that can cause skin outbreaks of rashes if they brush against the plant, understandable. While its foliage and stem are to be avoided, thought to be poisonous, however, its root can be eaten, just as wild ginger root too is edible, its flower and foliage to be avoided. And the same is true of compass plant, sometimes called pilotweed.

Compass plant

We're not concerned about our little dogs becoming ill from nibbling on growing things. We do offer them treats such as raspberries, thimbleberries and blackberries, as well as apples when they become ripe and they appreciate those. In Jackie's first year, though, he once in late fall nibbled on a fallen apple that had become mouldy. We thought little of it until when we returned home he was wobbly on his feet and behaved as though he were inebriated and we immediately realized he had consumed something that affected his nervous system, rushing him to the animal hospital where he was purged, given medication and watched overnight. We no longer encourage him to eat fallen apples.

Selfheal

We commonly come across another plant that I had always taken for some kind of ajuga-like one until I discovered it was in fact a plant called selfheal, and was once very commonly used for its medicinal properties, not for any one reason, but many healing properties attributed to it, which is kind of neat; reminds one of the bark of the willow tree valued for its ability to lower fevers, reduce pain; acetylsalicylic acid, the active ingredient in Aspirin, derived from willow bark.

Early pioneers to Canada from the British Isles thought so highly of the importance of some flowers and other plants that among the essentials they brought with them as settlers included seeds, not only to grow some flowers loved by them in their new land, but so they could plant kitchen and herb gardens to help feed themselves.

We were hoping for a little rain yesterday and though the forecast sounded hopeful, rain didn't, after all, materialize. Which meant that we would have to look around the garden on our return from our afternoon ravine walk, to see what looked parched among the garden pots and what could wait another day. In the ravine it's a different story. All the rain that fell in the past several days, at times descending with immense force in steady downpours after the usual thunder activity, has been absorbed.

Yet in many areas of the forest floor and the trails there is a residual dampness becoming in fact quite muddy in the lower-lying areas, particularly around the tributaries of the creek. Descending some of those hills can be pretty tricky; we've slipped and slid into falls on more than one occasion. Not too pleasant, particularly when you come away from the experience slathered in muck. Due care is called for. Or a trail diversion; at a critical juncture, anticipating muddy trails ahead, selecting an alternative branch of the trail system.

Jackie and Jillie know all the trails and their diversions. They're aware that from the heights looking down there is an advantage; they can see whether anyone is coming along that they might want to rush toward in greeting, or, on occasion harass. They stop at those promontories particularly if there is a bridge somewhere in sight when the screen of trees can be slightly interrupted for better sightlines.

But we're not seeing any other people much less their dogs out these latter days. The more moderate temperatures that were prevailing for the past week have passed their due date and we're now back into the 30C temperatures, with high humidity. We get so much sun, though, it's surprising that the wild apple trees are bearing very little fruit this summer. Some of the apples  that do present, though small, are already beginning to take on colour, though ripening is a long way off yet.

And there's plenty of colour in the ravine, lots of bright yellows in the sunflowers and the compass plants, a flowering wildflower I was previously unfamiliar with, a member of the aster family sometimes called pilot weed. And for daily interest there's nothing quite like the thistles in flower. They're so large and colourful, powerfully attractive to bees and Japanese beetles; each time we linger to see what's happening with them, a little drama ensues.

When we returned home yesterday Jackie and Jillie as usual, feeling energized, immediately began  leaping at one another, boxing, wrestling, racing all over the house, upstairs and down. They indulge in this horseplay, Jackie emoting continually, Jillie taunting her brother to greater extremes as the more acrobatic one of the duo, until they tire. And then they ask for a treat. We've developed the habit of doling out lettuce leaves and they love nibbling on them. They're veggie-addicted dogs.

We appear now, having turned the corner into August, to have reached a point of moderation; less heat, less rain, more humidity, lots of sun. Everything that had shrivelled when we were flirting with drought has been resuscitated, but for the forest and garden vegetation that succumbed completely, and there was plenty of that in the former, less in the latter.

We've reached a reasonable balance in the weather, which is nice, but anyone living in this area that thinks this will continue is living in fantasy land. No complaints about yesterday, though. We had a balmy breeze, a high of 27C which is a far cry from 34C which we were treated to not that long ago, day after day, and though there was a cloud cover, plenty of glare from the sun.

And it was much, much after we'd returned from our ravine walk in the woods with Jackie and Jillie and I'd gone out to the garden to do a little tidying up that the skies opened up and treated everything to a brief rain event.

On the edges of the forest, the sunflowers are still flaunting their stately beauty, and they've been joined by fall asters; not very many yet, but soon they'll be flourishing in shades of vanilla, mauve, purple and the most lovely of all, pink, in a wide variety of sizes, alongside the goldenrod. After I'd taken a photograph of the earliest of the asters I realized they like our gardens, were infested with Japanese beetles, whose predation will make short shrift of the asters' blooming cycle.

Later in the evening, it was really pleasant outside, a nice cool breeze and a partially clear sky convincing our older son to set up one of his telescopes on the deck outside the breakfast room. He showed me Mars and Saturn, and I was quite excited to see for the first time the rings around that gaseous giant.

Heat, exacerbated by high humidity under steely-clouded skies still invited us out to the ravine for an excursion through the woodland trails early yesterday afternoon. Jackie and Jillie expect no less. In deference to the forecast however, of all-day thunderstorm threats sometimes of violent intensity, we took along a backpack with rain gear.  Which, in truth, wouldn't have been of much use had we been caught by a storm and not a light rain event.

Indulging in the usual argument, I insisted I would wear the backpack, a small affair after all, and mine, while my husband had little option but to agree and he took along our little poodles' water bottle to be able to offer them refreshment whenever their tongues got to the point of disengaging from their roots firmly ensconced in their mouths.

As usual, we stopped briefly by the huge thistles which truly fascinate us. All the more so with the frenetic and ongoing bee activity brought along by the thistles opening their beautiful flowers, one after the other. These immense thistles have countless flower buds but they never open simultaneously; out of a total of perhaps 50 on each plant, only several open at a time, have their moment of glory, shrivel once the bees have taken their fill of pollen, and others reveal themselves.

It's also the time of goldenrod flowering, and the graceful plumes of tiny flowers that make up the whole are finally turning their bright, sunny glow of golden-yellow. Yarrow too is coming into its own finally, but still overwhelmed by the more numerous Queen Anne's lace. They might seem to the unaccustomed eye to resemble one another but they don't really, each catching the eye in its own inimitable beauty.

As it turned out, this was one of those rare days when a breeze barely stirred the canopy of the forest and the gathered clouds continued to threaten, but no sound of thunder far off to warn us that rain would be imminent. It was hot, yet only 27C and the bare stirring of whatever breeze there was occasionally washed over us with a brief cooling factor.

Rain failed to develop after all. It wasn't until five in the late afternoon that a thunderstorm finally moved in and inundated the landscape with a cooling rain event. And I was grateful for that, since I had just days earlier planted some wax begonias in the garden because I abhor the sight of an orderly garden, preferring one crowded and colourful.

Like all invasive species of foreign derivation, the Japanese beetle, an omnivorous vegetation forager, is an absolute curse. Its attractive carapace aside, it gathers in vast, hungry hordes to eat garden favourites like roses, but isn't averse to gorging itself and in the process, destroying most flowering plants. It seems impervious to being sprayed, either with water in hopes of dislodging them from their perches, or permanently with a home-made concoction of vinegar, salt, soap, baking soda and pepper. Nothing seems to faze them.

They lay their eggs under the grass in the soil to overwinter, and when the big fat grubs hatch in early spring they set about destroying the lawn, greedily eating the grass roots, leaving dark, dead patches where the grass should be thriving. Damp landscapes make them even more vigorous. And when they progress from grubs to their beetle stage in mid-summer the entire cycle repeats itself.

Yesterday on the cusp of descending into the ravine, just before the forest environs, we stopped briefly to look at the gigantic thistles that have grown on the verge of the forest. Their flowers are now in bloom and they host benign, useful and industrious bees, busily gathering pollen from them to take back to the hive for honey-production. Agriculture depends on the bees' activities for their fertilizing effect. It's a fascinating albeit routine in a sense enterprise everyone is familiar with. While watching the scene before us it became obvious that one bee kept itself busy 'bombing' a flower on which another bee was already hard at work.

Until closer inspection revealed that the busy bee was no bee at all but a Japanese beetle. The question then is, since there were other unoccupied flowers for the aggressive bee to land on to collect pollen why was it concentrating on the one the beetle was consuming? One set on destroying, the other on gathering and conserving. Might the bee recognize the beetle as a threat? Was that what its harassing of the beetle was all about? So not only is the beetle if so, hated by gardeners but by the bee world as well, and little wonder!

There were other things to note; the upcropping of fungi here and there as a result of the pop-up rain events of the last week and the more emphatic thunderstorms. One grouping in particular caught our eye, oyster shaded and scalloped at the edges, quite beautiful.

It was yet another hot day, no prospect of rain, but a nice stiff wind ensured we were kept fairly cool. Jackie and Jillie ambling about, off trail, on trail, on the lookout for squirrels to briefly enliven their tramp through the woodland trails with us on yet another lovely summer day.