I had decided yesterday that I would make a quiche for dinner. It's a little bit fussy to make, but I thought I'd have ample time. As things turned out, we were late in everything we did. Just one of those days. 'One of those days' encompasses a strange weather day that veered from morning rain to afternoon rain. Finally, the rain began to wane late in the afternoon. So we geared ourselves for a hike through the woods in light rain, hoping Jackie and Jillie wouldn't get too wet. 

They wore raincoats and didn't, after all get too wet. Mostly because while it continued raining awhile, rain suddenly turned to snow and that saved the day. We all enjoyed a pleasant enough hike, considering that the rain had softened the icy top portion of the snowpack, loosening it, so that our cleats bit into the formerly icy trails very securely, and we had no trouble getting about.

 

By the time we returned home it was really late, and we hadn't yet done the food shopping for the week, so off we went to the supermarket. A sea change from our usual COVID-era habit of getting out before breakfast to do our shopping. Our expectation was that we'd be coming alongside a lot more people shopping at 4:30 in the afternoon than at 8:30 in the morning. And we were not, in that sense, disappointed.

 

We managed to psychologically block out the heavy presence of other shoppers and focused on the usual. Shopping took a bit longer than usual, but apart from the now-inevitable sticker-shocks everything was well stocked, but for sale items. Little wonder that tuna at $.99 was absent. Instead we paid $1.49 apiece for tins to go into the Food Bank. Along with tins of chicken, ham, and soup, and boxes of macaroni and cheese dinner. 

 

It was late by the time everything was put away, and then it was time to prepare a pie dough and fill it for dinner, the quiche I had meant to bake. Irving loves eggs, but quiche, strangely enough, is one of his least favourite egg preparations. Yet for a change he ate every bit of this one, along with the spinach we had with it. He wasn't as enamoured of the sliced fresh peaches that resulted from the shopping, though.\

Halfway through this morning there was a telephone call from the Eye Clinic that the biometric reading for my right eye to prepare the custom-made lens had to be cancelled. One of their machines had broken down and the test was re=scheduled for the end of the month. I finished cleaning up the bathrooms, and we went off for a much earlier-than-normal hike through the ravine on an exquisitely beautiful day. Colder than yesterday which ended with snowsqualls and battering winds, and still somewhat windy, but sun-bright.

 

Jackie had been a bit squirrelly all morning. He could sense that something was up. He always knows when we're going to be leaving the house to go out somewhere leaving them alone. Those are the tines when high-pitched keening notes of protest and a chorus of prolonged howling ensue, a desperate plea from them not to go. After the call cancelling my appointment, he seemed quiescent, but still suspicious. That aura of unease dissipated when we went out for our ravine walk.

On our return Irving went out to the pharmacy with plans to go on to the library. They know the signals; if only his boots are out and not mine, they visibly relax, although they're careful to be right beside us anxiously until Irving exits the house into the garage. Once he's left and I'm there at home with them, a palpable sigh of relief can be felt emanating from their tiny bodies. All is well with their little world.

 

 

 

We got off to an early start with our grocery shopping as usual this morning. Despite which there were more people about shopping in the store than we would have preferred, and the shelves weren't yet adequately stocked. Usually people doing their shopping in this supermarket are restrained and polite, keeping their distance, aware of others and courteous, but we certainly hit the jackpot today encountering uncivil rude people. I don't know how the supermarket staff put up with it.

We're no wiser about the bananas we bought last week, the only young man stocking the vegetables and fruit was unfamiliar to us, and he hadn't heard of anything amiss, though he was anxious to be of help. No question about the bananas today, we had our choice of ripe and ripening bananas to our hearts' content. No more hand-wood-carved bananas for us. In the end, though there were a few items missing because it looked as though some shelves had been swept clear, we had no problem getting everything we set out to acquire for the week.

When we pulled up into our driveway one of the more interesting mysteries in our lives was solved.There was Dan, our next-door neighbour whom we've known for decades, shovel in hand, just finishing up shovelling our walk and porch from yesterday's snow. My husband had been convinced it was Dan to begin with, but I wasn't; he's retired himself, though considerably younger than us, has a bad knee and I had thought it was a neighbour across the street, Melanie, a lot younger and given to snow shovelling at the first hint of snow.

I felt like crying. It's hard to really convey your appreciation for other peoples' thoughtfulness. We're perfectly capable still of doing such things for ourselves. But Dan thought he had seen my husband struggling with the task once and resolved he would do the shovelling himself from this time forward, and wanted us to know that he would be there to help with anything else we needed assistance with. He even told his son Nicholas that when he's out shovelling their own place, to go along and do ours as well. We've been blessed with such good neighbours, Dan among them.

Since this was another 'free' day for me, I decided to bake a small batch of cookies. My husband always loves the simplest cookies his mother used to bake; sugar cookies. I mixed up a batch and added nutmeg this time. Rolled out rounds, and baked sandwich cookies, one thin round atop another with the centre cut out and ladled a dollop of sour cherries between the layers. The fragrance wafting through the house snapped my husband to attention.

It's a pretty mild although overcast day, the temperature soaring to 1C. The trees in the forest are still limned with the snow that fell yesterday and overnight; not much, just enough to make a cheerful statement on the landscape. There were very few strangers about on the trails today which suited us just fine. We did come across quite a number of our old friends, however, and that suited us even better.

There's one woman who lives on a street behind our own, who occasionally brings her two dogs into the forest for hikes, as she did this afternoon. One of the dogs is old, though not elderly, a small furry mop of a dog, with a surprising intelligence and spirit of resourcefulness. The other is barely six months old, a poodle mix, full of energy as only puppies can be. Nemo, the little dog, followed our friend Gary with his three Border Collies up a hill leaving his human and the puppy far behind. We had just descended that hill leading down to the creek.

 Our friend was nonchalant about her little dog off on a tangent. He knows the ravine intimately, and would just go wherever he felt like heading toward. Not the kind of hovering over ours that we're accustomed to. We stood talking with her and another friend for awhile, and then Nemo returned but not to stick around with his human. Instead he accompanied us as we crossed the last bridge and ascended the final hill to take us to street level. Along the way we met up with two of our dearest neighbours.

Nemo calmly carried on, took himself up to the street, then sat and waited. Eventually, as we encountered even more of our neighbours and began a gabfest, Nemo's human arrived with the puppy and Nemo rejoined them and they all made their way up the street, rounding the corner to access their own street, and went home.

 

Jillie

The 'spa' we take our puppies to now that I no longer groom them myself (thank heavens that's off my hands now, it's difficult, time-consuming and never as rewarding in a job well done as I'd like it to have been) is located in the old converted single-story house located on a main thoroughfare that had been the location of the veterinarian hospital hospital we take them to. The group of veterinarians who operate the hospital had purpose-built a one-story sprawling building right next to the converted house several years back and decided it would henceforth become a grooming salon. 

Jackie

The old house when it was converted was divided into a multitude of very compact examining rooms. There is one in particular that Jackie and Jillie are always placed in after their grooming has been completed, to await our arrival to bring them back home. The chamber is tiny but it has a floor-length window facing out to the street, and as we walk the narrow path toward the spa in front of their parking lot, our puppies can see us and they leap repeatedly at the window, appealing for us to hurry.

The new protocol is that one person only (in our case two) is permitted entry at a time into the little building's small reception area. You must wear a mask (of course) and wait on the porch, to be admitted. You're there by prearranged appointment, both to deliver and to pick up your charges. So you ring the bell and very soon one of the groomers appears, opens the door to admit you. They wipe down all surfaces, meticulously. There are four of them, all young, sweet young women who handle the pets that are brought to them deftly and lovingly. We have every reason to trust and appreciate them.

They're cheerfully reassuring, and we suffer few pangs now leaving Jackie and Jillie in their care. Before the appointment takes place they now routinely send out a stock questionnaire by email relating to COVID as assurance to them and to us that, as much as possible, they can ensure safety precautions are being taken with respect to virus exposure avoidance. Once completed, your response is emailed back and the appointment is assured. Our appointment was for 1:00 p.m., and it takes an hour and a half before the grooming is completed and we return to retrieve our little rascals.

Jillie comes complete with two tiny pink bows on either side of her head. They don't last long, however; she makes quick work of them, shaking them off her silky hair. Our puppies come out of their ordeal very well; they smell lovely and look sleek. They're so excited it's hard to get them to be still long enough and stop leaping around us so they can be picked up for the short trip outside into a windy snow blizzard and taken to the car. Licks are never-ending, and play havoc with our masks. Eyeglasses mist opaquely because of the masks; outside one minute, indoors the next.

Earlier, in the morning, we had set out when the snow had been falling more thickly and heavily. Ambling up the street toward the ravine entrance it looked as though a trembling white curtain had been placed before us, and thick snowflakes quickly melted on our faces. All the  drab colour of the day before when it had been plus-two degrees and the meagre amount of snow that had fallen the day before that was melting, revealing the dark, decaying leaf mass on the forest floor and now it was all once again disappearing under a fresh blanket of white.

It put a smile on the faces of everyone we came across as we passed on the forest trails. There was, in fact, a surprising number of people out; we saw at least a dozen, mostly with their companion dogs. It was a mean wind that blew, but nowhere near as nasty as it had been up at street level. We saw two incidents where young women slipped with a thump and slid as they carefully made their descent st the top of a few hills. Not enough people are aware of the dangers of freeze-and-thaw and the resulting ice covered with new snow, making for dangerous conditions underfoot.

 Hiking in these woods can constitute quite a challenge, but we've been going through those trails for so many years in all seasons, it would be strange indeed if we weren't aware and accustomed to taking necessary safety precautions. During the winter months, cleats never leave the bottom of our boots. Even so, there are some conditions where even the cleats are hard put to provide traction when on occasion they will slide and not bite securely into the ice.

From time to time Jackie and Jillie will behave as though they're aware of the presence of something or someone we cannot see. And this is when Jillie will offer a sharp, loud challenge, howling for whatever it is to come out and make itself visible. Jackie rarely does that; it's clear he's alert, but hers is the voice we hear; his tendency is to look and sniff about, and then simply get on when nothing out of the ordinary presents itself.