Are we ever prepared for winter onset? We're certainly conflicted by it. When we see the first snowfall, we gasp in admiration at its crystal white cleanliness shielding our eyes from anything in the landscape that so badly required a pristine blanket of purity. In late fall when our eyes are greeted on overcast days with a mute appeal to nature to lighten the mood of monochromatic greys and blacks we yearn for snow to fall.

And then, when an overnight snowfall succeeds in laying a soft coverlet of fluffy white crystals over the landscape, we awake to a world reborn. As we did yesterday morning. And though the sky was pewter-grey, it was also silvery and beautiful lofted above a landscape of shining white, snow everywhere, covering trees, rooftops, gardens and roadways.

And when we ventured into the forest, where the gloom of the day before, aligned with damp cold and wind kept people from the trails almost bare of hardy hikers, on this snow-laden day the trails were flocked by happy dogs and their human walkers. We came across good-natured, lumpy-large Benji, delighted as always to be out, and as a mountain dog whose genes are most comfortable in snow, led him to flop into the as-yet sparse covering, his body soaking up its cool pleasure.

Dogs, all dogs, seem to recall their love affair with snow year-to-year, so that when it finally returns they recognize its presence and revel in it. Something about early snow, light snow, loose and powdery, lifting into the air during their romps, entrances dogs. It incites them to episodes of manic mobility sending them racing down the trails, back up again and return and repeat. Jackie in particular surrenders to this urge to race the trails halting momentarily to entice Jillie to join in, and she does briefly, then settles back to watch her brother.

The landscape is entrancing, and though we have its beauty etched in our own memories, our appreciation for the sight of newfallen snow burying the desiccated colour-leached fall, each time it is first introduced with the coming of winter, it takes our breath away.