We've finally reached the Winter Solstice, and this, the 21st day of December, is the shortest daylight-day of the year. We've acquired quite a depth of snow up until now, with more on the very near horizon, an additional fifteen to twenty centimeters anticipated by the time a new snowstorm set to begin blowing in by this afternoon and to continue on throughout the day on Sunday finally blows itself out. This, after days of light, continuous snowfall. Our world is a veritable wonderland of sparkling white.

We're thankful that the temperature has moderated from the minus-double-digits that made walking out in the woods for over an hour quite the expedition the last several weeks, reminiscent of those hardy souls clambering atop Everest, or trekking out in the Antarctic, though needless to say the severity of those climatic experiences is nothing compared to what we're exposed to, here.

We saw no one else out in the ravine yesterday. There were a few squirrels out and about, anxious to do their usual pilgrimage to the places where we usually leave peanuts for them. Squirrels tend to be skittish about newfallen, light snow. For one thing, in the winter when all is a monochromatic black-and-white, and they are no longer shielded by the green screen before leaf-fall, they're more visible. And as such, vulnerable to the possibility that a hawk or an owl, let alone a coyote or a raccoon might decide to feast on them. They tend to take preferentially to an aerial route to arrive at a destination if at all possible. Trying to avoid the deep snow, where they must exert more care, in a succession of leaps.

Not a bird to be sighted anywhere, however. We did see evidence, down by the now-frozen creek that a muskrat had surfaced from an opening in the ice, its tail trailing after it, making the only at-first puzzling impression on the soft, fluffy snow.

That soft, fluffy snow has reached great heights. It humps right over the tree stumps that were formerly at our waist level, smoothing and raising and rendering the appearance of ghostlike presence. A very slight wind urged the burden of snow off overhead boughs and when that happened, a shower of light snow would gather under the bough as it rid itself of its burden, an otherworldly, ectoplasmic apparition, beyond beautiful.

All sound was muffled, all was still, tranquil, abundant with captivating scenes of evergreens appearing like picture-postcards of a perfect Canadian winter. If, indeed, the temperature continued to hover at minus-five-degrees Centigrade it would indeed present for us as the perfect Canadian winter.