These days when neighbours speak together the first thing that comes to their minds is to question whether anyone has yet had their COVID vaccines. Most of our neighbours -- at least the original ones -- are retired and in the age demographic that the province has finally assured that should they register expeditiously they'll have their inoculation administered in a matter of days.

Ottawa is now registering case numbers in the low hundreds, but they're steadily creeping up and have been for several weeks, mostly driven by the new variants, and of those for the most part, the one that emerged in Great Britain, though wastewater treatment analysis has revealed the presence of the more grave and infectious South African and Brazilian variants as well. 

And with this third wave it appears to be a younger age demographic that has increasingly called on the health services of our local hospitals. A rather grim occurrence is known where nine patients at the Civic Hospital, there for treatment unrelated to COVID, contracted the virus while in hospital and died there of the effects of COVID. 

Moreover, the Ottawa Heart Institute has reported that admitted patients and associated health care workers, all of whom had received at least the initial dose of vaccine, have contracted COVID-19. Area schools have seen swiftly rising cases of COVID among students and staff in a worrying trend. And with the approach of the Easter weekend, health authorities keep reminding the public of the dire need to continue observing social distancing, masking and non-attendance at group events.

Ottawa was moved from the orange zone to the red a mere two weeks earlier. Now the provincial government and its health authority advisers are prepared to move it further into restrictive territory, in the grey zone, while appealing to people to avoid situations where transmission of the virus is likely to add to the numbers already identified with COVID, kick-starting another emergency situation in hospitals hard-put to serve their community function as it is.

The human mind needs relief from the constant references to the coronavirus threatening the world. We take ours when we venture out into our nearby forested ravine with Jackie and Jillie, our two little poodles, for a needed distraction; exercise, exposure to nature, fresh air and the sheer enjoyment of being out-of-doors taking note of seasonal changes in the forest.

As we entered the initial precinct of the ravine we saw the first woolly bear caterpillar of the season. It's an early season for the little creatures; here it is the first of April and their usual emergence date is around June. This little fellow chose a blustery, cold day to search for a suitable place to build a cocoon so he could turn into a tiger moth.

Yesterday's rain helped more snow and ice to vacate the forest trails. Given yesterday's weather forecast, we were expecting snow overnight, but it was either delayed or cancelled by the big fella up there. We're at the point where some areas that we know well from past experience will continue to cling to thick layers of ice while the remainder of the trails will be long free of snow and ice, convincing us to go elsewhere rather than risk uncomfortable falls. 

It was cold out there, with the high for the day at 0C, and a cold-piercing wind. It was back to winter jackets for all of us. We'd like to shed our cleats but whatever ice is left on the trails, particularly ascents and descents, persuades us otherwise. Booted and with cleats, for the most part we trod about in areas of trail deep in mud. These are conditions -- the cold and the wind, and the muddy spring-thawing ground alternating with areas of slippery ice -- that convinces most people to stay off the forest trails and out of the ravine.

Which is a gift to us, since it means we'll enjoy a quiet, peaceful trek through the woods. And since we've been informed by people who often report seeing and hearing coyotes that they appear to have decamped because no one, even those living alongside the ravine who often see and hear them during the nighttime hours no longer do, that we'd leave Jackie and Jillie off-leash today. It hardly seems they know the difference. They range further of course and we keep admonishing them to stay close by, but they seem unaware that they're no longer tethered to us.

Unbelievable -- for well over a year the world has been gripped in a COVID vice, squeezing the life out of people and the world-wide economy, creating desperation everywhere it strikes, and now that the miracle of a preventive vaccine is available, many people, even the most vulnerable to virus onset and death are unwilling to be inoculated against the pathogen. There is, for at least 40 percent of an entire population, little trust in science, evidently.

Ontario finally, to the great relief of its elderly population, has opened registration for appointments to be scheduled for vaccinations held at any number of temporary vaccine clinics. There were some initial glitches in registration but they appear to have been solved. Did the authorities think of the glitch in uptake that might eventuate? They're appealing to people to respond, to register, to receive their vaccinations because while they have thousands of open spots at the clinics for registration, they're going empty.

And furthermore, because some people have failed to show up for their appointed vaccination time, precious vaccines are going to waste. In addition, there is a problem from within the medical community itself whereby many there are loathe to, or refuse to be vaccinated. Among them personal care workers who are in daily contact with the demographic of health-compromised elderly requiring close and constant care.

A desperate situation has evolved in the last two weeks at Ottawa's Heart Institute where both patients and health workers have received their first dose of vaccine but in the interval between their first and second scheduled dose both patients and those administering to them at the hospital have contracted COVID-19. 

Under instruction from Canada's appointed National Advisory Committee on Immunization, the supply of vaccines has been 'stretched' from the manufacturer's fixed recommendation of several weeks between each dose, to an arbitrary four months in Ontario before the second dose is administered. This, in an effort to make the available vaccine doses stretch further so that many more people in the Canadian population can be inoculated than if the two-dose-two-week protocol is followed.

Interestingly, the hospital authority is calling upon the province to make an 'exception' for health workers and heart patients, to have their second dose stepped up immediately in light of the hospital's experience. Just as interesting is that two elderly retired physicians who have received their first dose, outraged at the decision to withhold the second dose for a four-month period rather than respecting the manufacturer's instructions, are suing the government presumably for a form of medical malpractise.

As for us, it will be a week Friday that we received our first dose. Our second is scheduled for mid-July; about 104 days' hence. We're grateful to have received the first dose and would be even more relaxed about the situation if we were to receive the second in another week. Everyone has aspirations of wishing to live to see another year.

It's raining again here. After yesterday's all-sun day and the full-day rain event of the day before that. The rain and more elevated temperatures have melted most of the snowpack from winter. And what's the weather forecast for the next several days? Well actually, snow, as the temperature continues to fluctuate wildly.

If that old ditty, 'Red sky in the morning, sailors take warning. Red sky at night, sailor's delight" is anything to go by, we shouldn't be having a rainy, windy and cool day today. Last evening as the sun was setting and twilight was just beginning to set in, we saw a blaze of red tinged with yellows across the sky. A nice way to cap off a sunny day to be sure, but it did not augur a fair day to follow, after all.

No ravine hike means a bit of extra time and since I've started the ritual of seasonal spring cleaning, and did half of the end-wall pantry in the kitchen yesterday, I cleaned out the second half today. That's just the beginning, there's tons more left to do. And it'll get done by-and-by.