Cooler Days and Nights
How about that? We no longer have those floor fans running full blast aimed at our bed throughout the night, helping us to tolerate an almost-sleepless night of heat prostration. The fans are silent, the bedroom windows wide open to admit night-time breezes of cool, fresh air. And we're just approaching mid-August; interesting. So when we set out for our morning ravine walk, it was under cloudy skies that occasionally emitted rays of sun. Lots of wind, fresh, clean air.
Just a bit of trailing lotus beside the trail, the helleborine flowerets we'd so admired are now dried up, although there are still a few bits of fleabane flowering here and there. As we dip into the ravine, waiting for Button and Riley to amble along down the trail, we see the crimson flash, hear the crystalline trill of the cardinal assuring us he's on duty, pursuing his routine patrol.
As we clamber up another hill, Riley stops then looses a bark, and another. I admonish him, tell him to stop, and to get going up the hill. As we crest the hill, there we see a woman with a dog, and it is toward the dog that Riley thrusts his unwelcoming bark of challenge. This is, after all, as far as he is concerned, his ravine, and any other canines that venture in are there on tolerance, and obviously he hasn't much of it to spare this morning.
We greet one another, and stand talking, explaining to the woman Riley's unfortunate proclivities when it comes to other dogs. Meanwhile, Button, older and patient, has herself greeted the new dog. We learn that he is a cross between a Sharpei and a Beagle, and his name is Jasper. Jasper is a barrel of a dog, stocky, bandy-legged and obviously good natured. It is in his face where we see his Sharpei heritage; his body declares him beagle-ish. His coat is a rich chocolate hue with red tones in the sun and he ambles amiably over to Riley, occasioning a snarl and my booted foot moves Riley a bit further away.
His owner is a physical foil to Jasper's presence; slight, of a certain age, but girlish withal, with straight blonde hair, a winning smile and an obvious penchant for chatting. She mentions how infrequently it is that she ever sees anyone, let alone anyone with a dog, walking in the ravine. How the nearby streets are full of dogs, yet no one ever seems to take their dogs for ravine walks, and we concur. She is coquettish; as we talk she removes a band from her hair, shakes it free, sheds her light jacket and poses.
She obviously enjoys talking and it becomes difficult to intervene, to add one's own opinion, but we do regardless. She waxes eloquent about the other hiking opportunities which abound in the area, and describes some of them to us; their geological features, how to access the trailheads. She is a fount of hiking information, a true enthusiast. We are impressed with her enthusiasm, tell her so, bid her adieu, then continue in our opposite directions.
There is white baneberry glistening in a bit of sunlight, its foliage all but disappeared back into the soil from whence it came, the berries looking like displaced animal eyeballs. Among a stand of asters we have made out the presence of another wild flower, a sole cluster of tiny white frilly pussytoes held high on their stalk. At this particular junction of the hike where the trees are more immature and there is not yet a deciduous canopy, there is good colour, shape and texture, thanks to clover, ripening raspberry, purple loosestrife and Queen Anne's lace.
We note a tall old poplar in swift decay. High winds have cracked off the top mast two-thirds of the way up the trunk. The sad spire not yet completely detached, but hanging in improbably close embrace with its also-now-defunct trunk. The recent violent thunderstorms and strong winds have taken down quite a few of the trees in the forest, although we do of course see an equally large number of saplings beginning their adventure with life. A reflection yet again of the breadth and scope of nature's relentless cycle.
Cardinal creek is no longer flush with rainwater from the thunderstorms which have clapped through this area so relentlessly of late, for we haven't had a storm in a week, and in that week's time the temperature has dropped considerably, fairly consistently. Concurrently, the dreaded mosquitoes have returned.
Typical August.
posted by Pieface @ Tuesday, August 15, 2006
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