A Rainless Day...!

Under the blessing and assurances of a mostly blue sky stippled with innocuous, scalloped white clouds, the ravine looked far different than it had yesterday. The creek still rushing along, dark and detritus-filled, but its urgency, rain-swollen state and mad rush was vastly diminished.

The wind bustled about us, rustling the leafy canopy above. The trails now only muddy, not surfeit with deeply wide miniature lakes. We heard the insistent call of a nuthatch, but no accompanying chickadees. A cardinal singing nearby filled in the gaps very nicely for us.

The soddenly drenched look of the ravine had been transformed to that of a flourishing wooded summer landscape. Not so much that we mind the rain. But the sheer number of downpours yesterday following a seemingly established pattern of repetitive rain events day after day does cry out for some relief. People are grumbling that this is the summer that never was. Not us, though.

Despite communal miseration over too much rain, the breadbasket provinces of this country suffer under drought conditions. So dry there that wildfires present an additional seasonal dilemma, over and above crop failure. In Kelowna, British Columia, thousands of residents are having to evacuate areas where such fires are raging out of any semblance of human control. So, we're fine, just fine, thanks very much.

We take our usual leisurely stroll. Good for all of us, to slow down, and just enjoy ambling along, and in the process also challenge our hearts and lungs with the ascents and descents since this is, after all, a ravine and its geological topography is precisely that. Today we saw the first goldenrod sporting its yellow flower fronds. And we see for the first time that the 'berries' in the bunchberries have resulted from the lovely white 'dogwood' flower that blossomed in the spring.

And now too, joining the configurations and colours of the other summer wildflowers, thistles and burdock have begun turning their lovely mauve colour. We watch as a pair of butterflies engage in an aerial dance, oblivious to the presence of anything else. Who knows, after all, what ecstasies creatures unlike ourselves are capable of experiencing?