What is currently occurring in our atmosphere is unprecedented, truly bizarre. We are still officially in winter according to the calendar and in accord with what we see surrounding us. But we are baffled by the incredible warmth that has now flooded Eastern Ontario. Yesterday our temperatures rose to 20-degrees Celsius, and today will be even warmer, according to Environment Canada.

Early morning fog tells us of a profound temperature inversion taking place between night-time ambient temperatures and those that follow, with sunrise and the growing strength of the sun's warmth in our Northern latitude.

We are not accustomed to such wholesale temperature inversions. Suddenly being able to throw open our house windows, to go outside in shirt sleeves, to sit on the deck and be suffused with the warmth. Our little dogs have been profoundly affected; they continually beg to be allowed outside. This is how they usually behave in the spring, but it is far advanced of the calendar. True, we will be officially in early spring in another day or two, but this is truly unprecedented.

Our ravine walk yesterday was incredibly peculiar. Without jackets, having shed also our winter boots, and having placed our cleats over hiking boots we set out yesterday afternoon for the ravine. It was oppressively hot directly in the sun walking up the street to the ravine entrance. And then, pleasantly warm dipping into the ravine, shaded by the surrounding forest trees. Once we set out on the trails, some of them a half-foot thick in ice, it became icily frigid again.

Our bottom half felt consumed by cold, while our upper half imagined ourselves to be in a tropical environment. The ice that gained such a strong hold in the ravine over winter is not yet prepared to relent and allow itself to be removed by anything as inconvenient as warm temperatures. The cold given off by the ice, meeting the warmth of the prevailing environment, however, temporary, seems quite as though we are still in the depths of winter.

If this weather continues, as it is forecasted to for another week the ice will have little option, but to depart. Because yesterday was Sunday, we came across teens (unusual for any Sunday) making their way through the trails, slipping and sliding and whooping with excitement, a trail of marijuana odour in their wake.

The weather has resuscitated humans and the birds and small animals that make their home in the ravine; they were everywhere, rejoicing, revelling in the freedom from oppressive cold and miserable winds in amazingly altered climatic conditions, brief though it may be.