The Ravine, and The Kids On The Block

Wow, it's turned quite hot, and it's also dry. Despite which, there is obviously enough standing water somewhere in the ravine to encourage the latest hatch-out of mosquitoes, damn things. In self-defence, not opting for mosquito repellent, we dress for the occasion. I wear a really white, light-weight trousers and jacket (bought 17 years ago at a Tokyo flea market) because they're not attracted to really light colours and the airy cotton keeps them at bay. I've also got a fine-mesh wide-brimmed hat on; protection against both the sun and the mosquitoes.

Mosquitoes harass Button, our little black female, but steer clear of Riley, our smaller apricot poodle. They adore her hormones and detest his. She gets kind of antsy anyway around this time of year when anything resembling hornets, wasps and bees get too close and personal, never having quite forgotten her earlier run-ins with them of years past. He's too unaware to care about such extraneous irritations in our woodsy adventures.

You know it's dry when you see large cracks appearing in the earth, and when the creek is really low. A few days ago we saw a pair of mallards paddling along in the creek, waddling up and over the embankment to another arm of the creek, then settling back down into the water, so obviously oblivious to our presence. The drake seemed to take charge, leading his lady fair - although he's the one with the wonderful iridescent greens - finally beyond our sightline.

Plenty of other bird activity though, with robins running about on the dry pathways, looking certainly not for worms, I'd venture. Red-capped sparrows and cardinals are about as well as goldfinches and their songs celebrate this day and presumably, their expectations of what providence will send their way. The apple trees, the hawthornes and chokecherries are all now in bloom and a slight wind sends their petals fluttering to the ground, like a summer snowfall.

Dandelions are there in abundance, looking delightfully fresh at this early point of the season. We see our first dogwood (bunchberry) flowers, and there are foamflowers sending up their white sprays. The wild lilies of the valley are finally in bloom, their scent shy, not quite there, not at all like their cultured cousins in our gardens whose scent is utterly sublime, wafting through the windows of our house for too short a period.

Perky little white strawberry flowers mingle with the white, mauve, purple and yellow violets. The trilliums are just about finished; very few still hosting their purple flowers, and we note that this year's crop of Jack-in-the-pulpit are scant in number, can't guess why. But there are plenty of trout lilies and straw lilies and flowering bellwort. False Solomon's seal is beginning to flower and red baneberry is now in flower as well.

We have our share of wild ginger, and I know they flower in April/May, but I've never been able to catch one of their shy flower heads at the base of the plant, actually in flower. There's more than enough to see, to point out to one another, to admire in this stretch of wooded ravine. And there's plenty we see that we'd rather not, like the hazelnut and dogwood branches deliberately broken, and small firs pulled out by their roots.

It's beyond our understanding why young people would think it an interesting experience to destroy flora in the ravine. The creek is littered with discarded beer cans from late-night revelry, and we can see where attempts have been made to light bonfires. Close to one of the bridges crossing the creek the rope suspended from an overhanging tree trunk is seeing plenty of use. The good-time boys have obviously scoured the neighbourhood for possibilities placed out by the curb on garbage day.

And there are small trees here and there whose tender trunks have been snapped in half. The caution placed on the trails to warn people that a portion of the trail had washed out and lay now at the bottom of the creek, along with a whole passel of trees, mature and immature, has been broken through and the signage, the wood barrier tossed into the creek by our local nature-boys. From time to time they try their hands at chopping down mature trees, setting fire to large pines, dislodging bridge floorboards. Boys will be beastly, won't they?

There, in the creek, beside the bridge, and under the swinging rope, lie a discarded door and beside it a mattress. Our adventurous nature-lovers would prefer their feet remain dry when they inadvertently let go the rope swinging from one bank of the creek to t'other.