Well, that was an exercise in silly. We've owned and lived at our current home for the past 32 years. Before the acquisition of our current home we owned and lived in another not too far from this one, in a different community but within the City of Ottawa, for almost 30 years after moving from Toronto where we grew up and where our children were born.

Housing has become inordinately expensive in Canada. On the other hand, although our first modest house located just north of Toronto in Richmond Hill cost us $12,500, some 65 years ago -- a princely sum to us back then -- salaries were nothing like they are now. We were both working full-time when we bought our first house and our combined salaries likely amounted to less than $3,000 a year.

Salaries are considerably more now, and that's an understatement. Another understatement is the price of housing gone through the proverbial monetary roof. Not only are houses expensive but they're also in short supply. The demand is high for many reasons; among them a larger population, fed mostly now by huge immigration numbers. Amounting to almost 400,000 new immigrants annually. That's a lot for any country to absorb, much less one as relatively sparsely populated with a huge land mass, as Canada.

So, now, all home owners must complete application forms on line attesting to their ownership as well as their residency. The idea is that vacant homes are to be faced with an additional taxation premium to ensure that no housing stock sits unoccupied. Why any would, is beyond me. It's meant to discourage speculative ownership based on rising house prices for resale.

In this house of ours yesterday we decided to once again make the kind of pizza we 'pioneered' back when our younger son was visiting with us, from Vancouver. He enjoys exploring new taste sensations and whole food combinations and brought with him an idea for a different kind of pizza. Topped with an unusual set of ingredients. But we found they worked well for us. So yesterday we did a repeat; I just made a plain bread dough for the crust, but added pizza spice/herbs into it while preparing the dough. We used chopped garlic, shallot, green onions and fresh dill. Also tomato paste, sour cream, sliced tomatoes, feta cheese and anchovies. And into our handy little pizza oven it went. The pizza oven is actually a 'drawer' at the bottom of our microwave, and it works very well.

 

Another icy day came along today following last night's -16C temperature. But by the time early afternoon rolled around, sun that had shone earlier in the morning hours had disappeared under a solid canopy of grey cloud, while the temperature rose to -8C. You felt the chill like an frozen mask being adjusted to your face, on exposure.

Which didn't stop Jackie and Jillie from frisking happily about on the trails, and greeting their pals who eventually came around for visits. In this cold, even large, short-haired dogs wear winter coats. I know what that's like; after decades of cutting my hair short every time I looked in the mirror, reaching for a pair of scissors, I retired those scissors a year ago, and since then have acquired once again a head of hair. And that hair makes a difference in the warmth quotient on my head; much appreciated.

Really, there are times that bureacracies can be downright confoundingly nonsensical in their decision-making. We could hardly believe it when one of our ravine-walking friends informed us yesterday that the municipality was balking at having the trash collectors pick up the bags neatly set aside at each entrance to the ravine, for regular weekly pick-ups when trash collection takes place.

One member of our far-ranging community has taken it upon himself for the past several years to place garbage containers at each of the ravine entrances/exits for the convenience of people using the forest trails picking up their dog droppings. The incidence of trails being befouled by peoples' companion pets has been greatly reduced as a result of this man's work. He goes to the trouble of buying garbage bags, placing new ones weekly in the trash bins he has provided, monitoring them, placing the filled ones out at street level for weekly pick-up.

For quite awhile when he began doing this he expostulated with the municipality that all it took was one short stop between houses to pick up the bag sitting at the curb ready for pick-up, but which the garbage collectors were leaving. For over a year after the situation had finally been resolved, the collection has gone smoothly. Now the municipality has advised this man, whose work is so altruistic (he has no canine companion of his own), they will no longer pick up the bags.

A decision that smacks of illogic. They suggested the municipality was not obliged to pick up the bags, that it might be the responsibility of another agency like the Rideau Valley Conservation Authority that does no such thing, and whose responsibilities are vastly different, focusing on land and forest conservation and monitoring. The municipality in fact, considers the ravine and its forest interior one of its urban forest 'parks' and performs all maintenance work within it. Using the creek running through the ravine as a storm run-off. 

Well, from wretched decision-making on the part of petty bureaucrats jealous of their wardship yet refusing to maintain logical responsibility, to our own focus closer to home, my husband installed the first of the two stained-glass windows in the shutters he made to fit over the window of our spare bedrooms upstairs. Now his attention will be given to producing its second half.

As for our near landscape, it looks as though we've finally entered winter. The forest landscape reflects an intense winter experience we've been long familiar with. There's some depth to the snow now, at last. The forest looks absolutely ravishingly beautiful, densely clothed in pure white.

There was some wind last night and this morning but it has done little to disperse the generous coating of snow yesterday's snowstorm lavished on the boughs and branches of the forest trees. They remain heavily laden, and even tree trunks are thickly coated reflecting the direction of the wind that blew the storm toward them throughout the night-long and morning-continuation of yesterday's snowstorm.

We were out later this afternoon than we had been yesterday, so the surprising hordes clattering through the forest trails were somewhat reduced, but not entirely. We did, amongst all the temporary hikers, see some of our hiking friends, stopping to talk awhile before carrying on in our separate directions. 

And when we returned home finally, to a steadily darkening atmosphere, the fragrance of the soup I'd put on to begin simmering on the stove for this evening's meal on a cold winter day, greeted us. Jackie and Jillie went berserk as usual, once they were unencumbered of their coats and boots, racing through the house after one another before solemnly gathering after me to urge me to attend to their cauliflower treat.