Yesterday, with one thing and another, it was a busy day for us. With short daylight winter hours we do try to get out for our afternoon hikes through the ravine early enough to take advantage of the dwindling light. All the more so since the forest interior is always these days in a state of dusk; slowly, then rapidly turning to the dark of night. But it wasn't until five o'clock yesterday that we were free to get out with Jackie and Jillie. By that time, of course, it was dark. But we've had ample experience from the time we were both in the active workforce, of enjoying nighttime walks through the forest. There's a beautiful albeit eerie light that shines from the night sky without the moon's presence, glowing through the forest in pale shades of pink or mauve, illuminating the snow piled on the forest floor. So, off we went; familiarity with the ravine's terrain is a help in navigating safely. And of course, since it was dark, we kept the puppies on leash.

As we left the ravine, climbing back up to street level, we checked our mail at the group mailbox adjacent the ravine entrance. A parcel, slim and well-wrapped, with the word 'fragile' front and back, from our younger son. In it a message for us and two gifts for our birthdays, a month apart. We'd spoken with him the night before and he hadn't mentioned sending anything; surprise! There was a lovely wood kitchen implement for me, a flipper that he had made out of cherry, from a tree that had been cut down a few years back adjacent our son's Vancouver house. The crew had hauled it to Wreck Beach and left it there, and that's when our son retrieved it and has used its beautiful cherrywood to fashion things from, since. For his father, a penknife that he faced with pale wood from a branch of a wild fig tree that he had picked up while hiking through a forest in Corsica, Spain last year. Both pieces feel like silk, so extraordinarily well finished.

Yesterday there had been light snow that left a slight covering in the forest. Today a notable snowstorm began in earnest in early afternoon and when we ventured out with our puppies it was actually in blizzard mode. The  temperature had fallen from the morning's -2C, to -5C, with an icy, whipping wind and the snow blew directly in our faces as we walked up to the ravine. With their winter jackets and rubber boots, Jackie and Jillie were comfortable and excited about the snow, leaping about happily. This time there was no one out and about on the trails, only we four. It was cold, but the wind whipping the snow about made it seem even icier.

Later in the afternoon we ventured out to do our weekly grocery shopping. Traffic was relatively light, the parking lot half-empty, and the supermarket had sparse numbers of people shopping. I don't use a list for shopping, and it's a rare occasion when I forget a food item. Shopping didn't take long, but then we discovered there were no cashiers manning the tills, only one lone cashier at the 'convenience' aisle which sells lottery tickets and looks after complaints, filling in and looking after those uninterested like ourselves in using the many self-checkouts. She was unflappable despite having to do so many things and her professionalism soon saw us through the check-out.

When we left the store with a full shopping cart, those blizzard conditions had led to a near white-out. And so much snow was accumulated at the parking lot that it was impossible to push the shopping cart through to where our truck was parked nearby. I waited just outside the store while Irving retrieved the truck and we loaded it in front of the store. More miserable conditions of cold, wind and utter discomfort was rare, in our experience.

When we arrived back home, we had to shovel the snow off the deck and shovel a little pathway for the puppies in the backyard so they could relieve themselves. Hours later, before we sat down to dinner we both went out again to shovel all the walkways in the back along with clearing the deck, to enable Jackie and Jillie to get out again. As soon as we shovelled -- about a foot of snow by then -- more quickly gathered again, nature abhorring a vacuum.

 

Capricious nature; alternately testing us with tempestuously extreme weather events, or extremes of temperature, tempered by the beauty both invite to accompany them. This Arctic cold that has descended so deeply on such a wide swath of North America, hitting both the north-eastern US and like territory in Canada has given us both record low temperatures and wild wind chills, as well as exquisite landscapes of snow-packed scenery allied with days of brilliant sun.

In the past, when we've climbed the White Mountain range in New Hampshire, we/ve seen signage warning of extreme and sudden weather changes at the summits, posted at the entrance to trails. We experienced many years ago, just such extreme changes when we reached the summit of Mount Clinton and sight was obscured by thick sleet and snow on a June day. 

The U.S. Weather Service has announced the coldest ever recorded windchill registered on the top of Mount Washington of -103 Fahrenheit. Here, in Ottawa yesterday we only managed -43 Centigrade. Glad we weren't on top of Mount Washington. It is so cold here that when Jillie entered the house after a brief encounter with our backyard this morning, she  was alternatively lifting her frozen little paws.

It's been so cold neither Jackie nor Jillie feel inclined to expose themselves to the weather, despite the sun, without being accompanied by either Irving or me. And our brief encounters with the outside convince us they're perfectly right; if they have to suffer, so must we.

Yet, yesterday just before dusk fell we were amazed to see a very small rabbit out in the weather, seated at the stair stoop at the side door, nibbling carrots. The little fellow made its way to the front of the house to begin work on carrots awaiting notice on the front porch. Earlier in the day black squirrels had been around, nibbling peanuts. Hard to say whether they would be in semi-hibernation avoiding exposure to this severe weather if food wasn't readily available.

We turned to the comfort of food ourselves last night, with chicken soup and matzomeal dumplings on the menu, followed up by chicken paella, fragrant and seasoned toward the hot spectrum of taste, then moving on to Chelsea buns for dessert, stoking up the inner furnace against the onslaught of weather certain to question our survival instinct's trust in the future.

Despite remaining indoors  yesterday and today, eschewing our usual hikes through the winter forest, expending energy and enjoying the landscape, Jackie and Jillie had no problems making themselves warm and cozily comfortable these two days, content to remain sedentary in their 'dens' within the house.

Yesterday throughout the day into night, the sky remained clear, the sun vibrantly bright but able to cast little warmth beyond the iron grip of the cold. Most of today was also sunny, which makes for a beautiful appearance, while doing nothing to mitigate the cold. But by late afternoon silver-grey clouds had replaced the sun, and snow began gently falling.