Nature isn't terribly impressed with the human-designed calendar of the seasons, that much is abundantly clear. If Nature decides to instruct high winds and cold to settle in over a landscape, impulsively throwing in high moisture levels, gifting those below with a ferociously winter-like atmosphere which is, after all, native to the northern geography it is her prerogative to do so. Everything, in fact, in the natural world is the prerogative of Nature.

So it shouldn't nor would it have, surprised people who have always lived in the environment to awaken one morning to find themselves deep in a cold snap and deeper still in accumulated snow. We've seen this happen even in a more clement climate like that of Tennessee, where we enjoyed a mild, lovely day of light-jacket hiking in the woods, then awoke the following morning to find the entire landscape in the grip of an upended giant snow bucket which the sky had been transformed into. Impossible to walk without skies or snowshoes in that depth of snow, we soon discovered. Discovering also that main highways out of the area had been temporarily closed down.

So here in Ottawa in the cold-and-snow belt, we woke to a similar situation, but since we're more than accustomed to these events, it wasn't much of a problem to adjust. Mind, we'd been forewarned by Environment Canada and suddenly-aware drivers were frantically attempting to persuade over-booked and over-worked auto shops to drop everything else they were doing and tend to their personal pleas to put winter ice tires on their vehicles.

As for us, we ventured out the day after the big storm that left the first of the downy coverlets over our landscape to the tune of 25 cm, which a wicked wind that lopped off the woodlands' pine branches in the ravine, to enjoy a day of clear skies, struggling sun-warmth, little wind, and a high that day of minus-8-degrees Celsius. There were others out and about, enjoying the beauty of the day. Including a minuscule kinglet flitting in the trees, doubtless in the unseen company of chickadees.

We came across a whippet, wearing a blue coat, walking a young man on snowshoes. The ravine landscape was ravishing in its white beauty, the creek in the process of freezing over. No squirrels to be seen whatever, in stark contrast to the days previous when the woods ran thick with them, all imploring us to part with the peanuts we carry.

 Despite their visual absence, we knew they'd be out looking for treats, so we struggled, with double-mitted hands, to disperse them in the usual places.