No one likes to be shaken out of the comfort and complacency of routine, and we're no different. How will we explain this to Jackie and Jillie? Oh well, such things have a manner of taking care of themselves. They have never been accustomed through exposure, to walking on the street. On the few occasions when we have taken them on leash along a street they've reacted predictably, curious but suspicious about all the noise and activity going on around them.

They haven't been frightened but sometimes the loud noise of traffic on a busy thoroughfare can make them somewhat concerned. They're small and lightweight enough so that when we're crossing a busy major street with traffic in both directions we can scoop them up and deposit them on the other side, reducing any concern they may have and any of ours, as well. Jackie is one of those little dogs who occasionally takes a running spurt after a moving object, and cars and buses and trucks certainly move along.

There have been occasions when I've been unprepared for a sudden pull and his leash has dropped out of my hand, startling both of us; me that he's wrenched himself free of my protective grasp, and he that the leash is in hot pursuit of his pumping little legs, threatening him with capture.

We've even on occasion, had lightweight summer harnesses snap; a broken plastic catch or a strap pulled apart and suddenly he's !free! to get into trouble. Jillie can be really stubborn at times so that if she's tugged to bring her closer to one of us she'll dig in her heels, balk, and refuse to move. They are not, obviously, particularly well-disciplined little dogs. We've never spent any time wrestling with their spontaneous reactions.

So when we approached the entrance to the ravine early this afternoon intent on  forging out on our usual ravine hike through the forest, we were surprised on the approach, to see bright orange fencing in place. As we got closer we understood the fencing had been put in place but not yet completely closing off ingress. Tomorrow is the date that access to the ravine and forest through our usual route will not be available for a week or so.

We won't be shut out of the ravine, just from access through our usual route, a short jaunt up the street from where our house is located. The alternate is to walk down the street, a distance quite a bit longer, to get to a main artery, where we turn left and walk a block to another neighbourhood ravine entrance that won't be affected by the plans to do some geological testing of the ravine's stability, although when the hillside backing onto our street collapsed two years ago spring, trees plunging into the creek at the bottom of the hill, a smaller hill close to that other entrance also saw a slide occasioned by heavy spring rains that year.

We continued on our way after the reassurance that we had another day of easy access to the ravine. Today is a sharply cold, overcast day, a high of -4C, damp feeling, and a nasty icy wind that slaps the chill of winter directly at anyone out and about. Surprisingly, it followed us into the ravine and slapped us about through the length of our circuit.

I had dreamed last night that it had begun snowing. I woke several times through the night briefly, each time opening my eyes and looking at the bedroom windows, saw the external brightness that usually means snow is falling, and felt relieved that the stark grey-and-black aspect of the landscape would finally be relieved by the presence of snow. When we arose, I fully expected to see a white landscape, and felt quite disappointed that the snow had been a figment of my imagination.

There is very little of it left in the ravine, as well as some remnants of the icy surface on the trails that kept us vigilant for the past several weeks to ensure we didn't indulge nature's sense of humour through the ungraceful execution of a prat-fall; even worse a slide resulting in a fall head-first, colliding with the frozen ground, or backward resulting in a back injury, both of which we've experienced and have no wish to re-visit.

Despite the cold, the icy wind lashing our faces and industriously attempting to infiltrate the fastness of our winter clothing, being out in the forest has few challengers for the opportunity to appreciate nature. We came across no one else this afternoon 'appreciating nature'; quite obviously the greater public's appreciation of the season has focused for the time being on obligatory holiday stress-inducing activities meant to ensure an emotional and stress-relieved culmination at the end of the month.

The conditions and their juxtapositions that make for weather can sometimes be really strange. You wouldn't think that extreme cold coupled with a wild snowstorm would call up thunder, but we've experienced that while out snowshoeing in a wilderness forest area many years ago. We've been canoe camping in August and watched as a sheet of heavy rain slowly approached our camping spot closing in across the lake where we were high and dry, and then completely drenched.

We've seen drenching pockets of rain that were contained within a very small area and just outside that extremely limited area everything was dry, untouched by rain. We've watched, fascinated, on occasion, as rain came down from somewhere, belying the clear blue sky above. And yesterday morning dawned clear and sunny with light clouds just beginning to enter the skyscape, but off in the distance.

And despite full sunshine and blue sky where we were situated, the sun melting a small accumulation of snow that previous snowstorms had deposited on the metal roof of the canopy sitting over our deck, all around snow was coming down, ostensibly out of that lovely blue sky. Nature can never be underestimated to do the unexpected.

And, when we entered the ravine yesterday for our intended daily hike through the forest trails with Jackie and Jillie we certainly didn't expect to see signage from the municipality bringing to the attention of all and sundry that the trail system leading out from the street we live on would be temporarily closed, from this coming Thursday to the following Thursday. For geological inspection.

We needn't have been surprised. Ever since the major hillslide that took place several springs ago requiring remedial work costing millions of dollars, surveys have been undertaken to test the stability of the geology where the ravine sits. Mind, it isn't only the ravine, it's the entire area encompassing this part of Ontario and across the border into Quebec. The base is Leda clay known for its instability.

And the reason the municipality spent so much money, time and contracted-out labour bringing in great earth-moving and tracked excavators and had pile-drivers insert long metal rods down to an incredible depth to hit the underlying rockface was because the creek running through the bottom of the ravine is part of the stormsewer and emergency system for this part of the city, The collapsed hill had blocked the creek and the backup had created a lake that beavers swiftly moved into, destroying its utility as a conduit for stormwater.

Ever since, this particular area of the ravine adjacent to where we live has been under close scrutiny, trails bypassed, other trails temporarily opened, and now another survey closing off our main trail is to take place. For a week, the signage tells us, but it would be wrong, judging from past experiences. It will take them, in all likelihood, much, much longer. So it's up to us to find an alternate route into the ravine and the forest trails that will suit our purpose until passage to our own trail is restored.

Gloom. In any event, that's a few days off, yet. And in the meanwhile, we're just moseying along with the tide of more current opportunity, as it were. A little bit of inconvenience can be countenanced; at least we'll have access using other routes into the forest. It won't be an entirely new experience for us; when construction crews with their heavy machinery inundated the ravine years back to build new bridges, we were similarly constrained and sought out alternates. After which the ravine that we'd been familiar with for countless years was never quite the same again.

Major trails had been widened to accommodate the passage of tracked vehicles used in the bridge-building process. And we gradually became accustomed to the new, intrusive look of the forest with its wider passages which seemed to invite a wider response from the community bordering on the ravine, bringing more people into the forest to enjoy what nature has offered.