Famously, in the tropics vegetation grows swift, lush and large. The humid heat and the sun and rain predictably produce the perfect conditions for vegetation growth, and the most exotic and beautiful of flowers and plants thrive, as a result.

We've just got through yet another micro heat wave, with temperatures in the 30C vicinity, and both sun and rain, leaving the atmosphere humid and enervating. But not for the flora growing in our gardens and in the forest nearby. In fact, while 2018 gave us a cold early spring, causing everything to appear through the recently-frozen soil of winter much later than usual, late spring appears to have reversed it all.

We're seeing wildflowers and our cultivated plants in our garden (including the wildflowers we transplanted years ago into our garden from the forest) appearing earlier than usual, and maturing faster than we might anticipate.

So yesterday, as we plodded through the humid heat of street level to find some relief delving into the forest, we saw the first appearance of  cinquefoil (pontentilla) in bloom on the verges of the forest beside the trails. Daisies are still blooming, alongside hawkweed and fleabane, as well as buttercups.

But the buttercup bloom has been short and it has transitioned to the blooms turning into the little sharp-spiked 'mines' that later on in summer and early fall end up in the coats of dogs moving through them on the forest trails.

Though we took along water to offer to Jackie and Jillie yesterday in recognition of just how hot it was, they weren't really interested. Just too much otherwise to take their interest, and a cool breeze managed to make its way through the challenge of dense foliage to give us all further relief from the heat.

There can be little doubt that people, comfortable in their habits gained through long familiarity and reliability, are not easily convinced to shed them. Invariably we find that when we're out in the forest on the trails intersecting a large neighbourhood of residents on its perimeters we see no one else, irrespective of the weather and the time of day if that day happens to be a Saturday.

Throughout out working lives when we're too busy during the work week to indulge in shopping excursions, invariably Saturday is the target day for shopping. People do go out to shop on Sundays as well, but the absence of people going through the woodland trails on Saturdays is acutely pronounced, whereas it is not on Sundays.

And so it was yesterday -- when we took a long circuit meandering a considerable distance with access to the trails in a wide arc of the place we call home -- that we encountered no one else on a pleasant, breezy and very warm Saturday. Although we take pleasure in coming across other people on our daily forays into the wooded ravine that bisects our larger community, we take even greater pleasure when the entire area is being temporarily occupied by only we two and our two little dogs.

For one thing, Jackie and Jillie behave better when there are no challenges to their inbred sense of canine entitlement in territorial possession, and the ambles through the trails tend to be quieter, more peaceful with that kind of solitude. We are able to uninterruptedly look about us to discover, each and every day, something new and notable about the forest.

We see that raspberries and blackberries are both  now in full bloom; the blackberries slightly behind their cousins, and now they've been joined by the thimbleberry bushes that have established a full, robust presence since early spring; unlike the previous two, thimbleberries seem to vanish into the leafmass of the forest floor over winter. They soon make up for their seeming visual impermanence, however.

Milkweed has introduced itself to this part of the ravine where we most often tread; decades ago we saw it only on another more distant portion. For the first time ever we've now come across wild columbine close to the creek and it's a welcome intruder; we dare hope many more will establish themselves and give us ongoing pleasure in their beautifully shaped and coloured flowers.

And mullein this year has appeared where we've never before seen it, large and emphatically comfortable, preparing to send up their flower stalks. Daisies, buttercups, fleabane and hawkweed, and now cowvetch are also in bloom, punctuating the vibrant green of the forest with bursts of colour. What a landscape!

Our weather patterns here in the Ottawa Valley seem so imperturbably intransigent regardless of the season. It should be a lesson learned that you cannot expect normalcy here, since what is normal in this region is instant change from dry and hot to humid and cool or any alternate combination of those weather values.

Still, though we are so focused on the weather, and its impetuous-seeming nature, volatile and harsh at some times, beneficent and life-affirming at others, it's what we have. And truth to tell, what we have, though seemingly never settled is, in fact, beneficial to all growing things. Regardless of the season we can always anticipate plenty of sun.

There is always wind which has a drying effect, and to counteract that, a never-failing source of rain or snow, a vital factor in any natural landscape to aid agriculture and forests and let us not forget, our domestic gardens.

The day we returned from our week away in the New Hampshire White Mountains that saw us hiking in old familiar landscapes, it was hot and dry. The following day? Cool and wet. Day after that? Continuing rain, copious at times, wind and despite the high humidity, very much on the cool side. All of which make for thriving green spaces.

Yesterday turned out an almost-hot day. Hot, directly in the sun, tolerable toddling our way along shaded forest paths in the forested ravine we take our two little dogs to daily. And there, while they snuffled and sniffed about, we saw nature's bountiful display of floral offerings in the wild. From already ripening strawberries, to raspberry and blackberry blooms, and the colour-startling deep pink of thimbleberry in bloom.

We also saw maturing mulleins, really hefty this year, more so than usual. And surprisingly, a wildflower we'd never spotted in the ravine before, a perky and pretty columbine. You just never know what you'll come across in that wooded ravine.

There are fewer daisies than what we used to encounter there, and more buttercups, and cowvetch is already beginning its bloom, along with bedding grasses. When the grasses fully open their floral buds, the fragrance, sweet and light, will overwhelm the senses in their near vicinity.

There is no time when the forested ravine fails to welcome our presence. Morose and moody days like yesterday are no exception. True, when entering the forest there is a dense, dark atmosphere more acutely present on heavily overcast days, but the apparent gloom is more than counteracted by the green glow that greets us within.

To us, the woods and the trails winding through them are irresistible. They placate whatever low emotions we may have, as they embrace us with the warmth of nature's generosity, sharing with us the evident values of being close to nature, not the least of which is its calming effect on our spirits that nothing else can quite approximate.

Oddly enough on beautiful sunny, warm days we often come across no one else for the hour or so that we amble along the trails. Now that is definitely peaceful, since with no others present, Jackie and Jillie feel no need to raise an alarm, which they are so irritatingly skilled at doing. They tend to assertiveness as though the environment is their personal possession.

On the other hand, if and when they come across other dogs known or unknown to them previously they become alarmed if any of those others become too pushily assertive. Being exposed to a little of their own uncivil behaviour which they do everything they can to avert close proximity to, however, hasn't taught them any lessons about social civility, sorry to say.

Yesterday, despite it was cool, windy and threatening rain, we happened to come across quite a few of our acquaintance trial walkers. Usually with dogs of their own.  One large terrier mix, Rufus, has a tendency to become too  pushy with Jackie and Jillie, hormonally driven and worrying to them, and they beg for us to pick them up and remove them from Rufus's insistent overtures. Once he's in my arms, Jackie will become chivalrously defensive, snarling and snapping at Rufus who continues his behaviour so alarming to our smaller dogs who don't want to be mounted by a hairy monster, as they must see it.

Their alarm is soon forgotten as we forge on, continuing our woodland ramble, marvelling at our consistent good luck in avoiding downpours. The day before, the skies had opened with a vengeance just as we completed our circuit, and yesterday once again, the rain fell later in the afternoon and on into the wee hours of the night, much to the delight of our garden.

We've come back home to unsettled weather, having just left the very same kind of weather six and a half driving hours behind us the day before yesterday. The weather a mirror image from the Ottawa Valley in Ontario to the Waterville Valley in New Hampshire.

On our short circuit through our nearby forest yesterday afternoon we were hoping that the lull in the all-day rain that fell throughout the day would last long enough to give us the opportunity to walk our little dogs and ourselves through the thoroughly drenched woods. And, as it happened, no rain fell while we were out, then returned with the full vengeance of a tropical storm soon after our return home.

It's almost as dark and forbidding weather-wise today as it was the day before. So we went off a lot earlier in the day hoping to bypass the inevitable, and this time took the full circuit, in the process coming across plenty of woodland hiking acquaintances and their dogs.

A week ago we had ventured off to Franconia Notch in the White Mountain range of New Hampshire's National Forest to visit the Basin, known for its large stretches of smooth granite on a mountainside within the range of the Notch, down which flushes a wide stream over the rock as it has done since prehistory. People generally stop there to admire the flume and the basin itself, but it has long been our habit to continue on up a steadily eroding forest path criss-crossed with tree roots and boulders to climb alongside the granite shield and its tumbling waters.

Many years ago we sampled all the trails with our teen-aged children, hiking for miles up the mountainside to reach a mountain lake not far from the summit where we saw moose at the lake's edge and had to traverse some quite challenging areas on our ascent.

Now, we content ourselves with a difficult-enough clamber uphill with our little dogs, to emerge at various points from the trail following narrower short off-trails leading to the sloping granite areas to rest, to enjoy the landscape and marvel at the power of water to transform the geological landscape, and its seemingly impervious granite.

The phenomenon of erosion, the determination of flora to grow, thrive and flourish where it is most difficult, never ceases to impress us. That day too was cool, overcast and threatening rain, but luck was with us and rain held off, allowing us to thoroughly enjoy this quite special place.

It's a gift we give to one another on our wedding anniversary. And last week was our 63rd wedding anniversary. We made the usual arrangements to celebrate that date and took ourselves off for a week to explore old familiar places in the great outdoors of the White Mountain National Forest of New Hampshire. It's a middling-long drive, you might say, and as long as we can bypass Montreal we feel we've missed just about the worst of the drive.

Crossing through U.S. Customs at Derby Line-Stanstead wasn't bad this time at all. We lucked in to a decent-minded customs officer who asked the usual tiresome questions, took a quick look at our passports and waved us through. They've run the gamut from just plain rudely ignorant to sweet and pleasant, and this fellow fell right in the middle.

We'd driven the bulk of our journey at that point, at least three-quarters of it. We stopped at the Vermont rest stop where we usually do (can no longer use the Quebec rest stop in the opposite direction going home; typically Quebec is not courteous and thoughtful to its visitors; it closed down the one which doubled as a tourism information booth at the crossing two years ago), and had a picnic brunch with our two little dogs before carrying on. Fortuitously, the rain stopped long enough to allow us the luxury of a walk-about since stopping there also gives them a chance to stretch their legs a bit. They've turned into excellent, undemanding travellers.

It seems to take little time at all before crossing from Vermont into New Hampshire, and once there, to pass through Franconia Notch. We had rain for most of the trip; from leaving home to driving through the Notch, and heavy dark clouds hung low over the mountains, threatening and bleak in appearance.

We arrived at the cottage we reserve in the Waterville Valley a half-hour later, greeting our wonderful hosts who own and operate a facility that allows us to bring along our little companion dogs. They've operated their beautifully situated business for 18 years and we've been taking advantage of their hospitality for 15 years, though it's been at least double and more that time that we've been visiting the White Mountains, originally with our three children while in their teens.

Not much time the rest of the day for anything other than unpacking, settling in, driving over to the terrific Hannaford supermarket to acquire the food we'd be eating for the next week, returning to the cottage, unpacking again, feeding our little dogs, and finally us. We were pretty bushed and for a change thought it a good idea to go to bed earlier than we usually do.

Next morning after breakfast we headed our to the delightful and beautiful Smartsbrook trail that has never disappointed us in its spring wildflower collection. We came across the usual; violets, False Solomon's seal, dogwood, bunchberry, straw lilies and outstanding pink Ladies Slippers. The dogwood had already blossomed and because of the rain the area was soaked. Wind and rain had brought down out of the trees intricate lacy lichens, firmly attached to bits of branches, and they presented as blossoms themselves.

We clambered the trail alongside the brook running down off the mountain, boulder-strewn and boiling with energy and sound. As you ascend, it turns into a wooded chasm, either side lined with striated, coloured granite walls until the trail takes you away from the brook and onto a flatter promontory called the Pine Flats. It in turn meets up with other trails and you descend into a denser forest along the Yellowjacket trail. 

We turned back at that point, to leave the entire circuit that would take us hours, for another day, when we felt a little more enthusiastic about expending more energy than we thought we could muster that first day. It was cool enough for jackets, windy and threatening rain but none resumed for which we were grateful. We seldom see wildlife there, though we do hear Northern thrushes, and see vultures circling above often.

This early summer weather is continuing very nicely. All our early spring complaints about cold, drizzly, windy and nasty conditions were heard by Mother Nature after all. And here we keep saying she doesn't care one whit about how her weather servants gleefully serve up conditions inimical to man and beast without admonition from their mistress.

Nature obviously went out of her way to convene a meeting where she repeated parameters just in case climate messengers mistakenly placed them high up in some inaccessible corner of their agendas, and here we are, finally steeped deep in weather that is pleasurable beyond description.

Yesterday was not quite as hot as the day before. However exposed to the sun it certainly seemed just as heated, but that dependable cooling breeze kept things under control. We'd gone out to one plant nursery on a relaxed country drive to see if there were ornamental trees miniaturized for an area of our front lawn that is being converted from grass to extended garden and it was packed with consumers. The prices made us blanch but obviously didn't bother people exiting with cartloads full of lovely little trees and perennials and hanging baskets of exotics.

We took ourselves elsewhere, to a more familiar setting where prices were less than half and the lovely green growing things we had a mind to acquire more of were in optimum health, selection variety and condition and came away more than satisfied. After which off we went with our two little four-legged rascals to the woods for a leisurely and pleasurable walk through the forest.

It was one of those times when we came across no one else, despite the length of our circuit, so we did, literally, have it all to ourselves bipedally. There were dragonflies and bees flitting about, the shadows they cast overhead alerting us to their presence in places where the sun penetrated the now-full-to-bursting forest canopy.

We moseyed along in Jackie and Jillie's wake; they set the place, more or less, none of us in a hurry, all of us intent on absorbing as much of the familiar landscape, its fragrance and its brimming colour lulling us into a sense of both luxury and satisfaction that we have the privilege of taking advantage of natural surroundings so close to our home.

Some of the ferns have attained great heights, their plumes graceful and tall, their colour and conformation ornamentally spectacular. And we came across a lively patch of ajuga (bugleweed) which I don't recall ever seeing in our area of the Bilberry Creek Ravine forest before, though my husband begs to differ.