Living with wildlife can be intriguingly pleasant, as it is for us, or it can also be dangerous if people are unheeding about your surroundings and the circumstances of weather and time of day. When we're driving at dusk or when dark falls around where our daughter and granddaughter live, we're aware always of the potential of coming across deer dashing out onto the road.

Just a few days ago a young couple recently married met with an unfortunate event. Another car hit a deer and the deer was sent flying into the windshield of the vehicle the young man was driving, killing him in the process. There is now a new widow in the area. The people whose car had hit the deer suffered no consequences. Undoubtedly the deer itself met its own death.

This, and other quite similar incidents, has renewed a call to the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources to call for a deer cull. They have estimated the deer herd size in the area to be around 400,000 and feel there is no need for a deer cull. There is a need for people to be more vigilant when they're driving in rural areas. Though deer have been seen in the urban spread as well; another hazard to be aware of, when driving responsibly.

For us, the closeness to nature given our suburban setting, offers only pleasure. At the thought of the raccoons coming around regularly, absent winter hibernation, to feed themselves at our compost. And, at this time of year, when it's so cold and snowy, we leave out daily peanut offerings to squirrels visiting at our side door.

And then, in other parts of the world there are other hazards living in relatively close contact with wildlife peculiar to one's area. This brief news article out of The Associated Press a case in point:

A Burmese python, one of two python species found on Bali. Photograph: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

A python strangled a security guard near a luxury hotel on Indonesia's resort island of Bali on Friday and then escaped into nearby bushes following the deadly attack. The incident happened around 3 a.m. as the 4.5-metre-long python was slithering across a road near the Bali Hyatt hotel, said Agung
Bawa, an assistant security manager at the hotel. The victim, Ambar Arianto Mulyo, was a 59-year-old security guard at a nearby restaurant. He had offered to help capture the snake, which had apparently been spotted several times before near the hotel, located in Bali's Sanur area, Mr. Bawa said. Mr. Muly managed to secure the snake's head and tail and put it on his shoulders, but the python wrapped itself around his body and strangled him, said Mr. Bawa, who was present during the attack.

Presumably, 'the attack' was initiated not by the snake which was merely going about its alarming business, transiting from its home through an urban area or vice versa. It reacted as any creature might be expected to, being 'attacked' by another animal with which it more or less shares the ecosphere.

Unfortunately, when human animals challenge other types of creatures whose environment they share, on occasion the humans get the short end of the stick, although usually it's quite the reverse.

We bundled up as well against the prevailing icy wind and cold as though we were headed off for an hour's walk in the ravine. But this trip was to the Ottawa International Airport when our younger son was due to arrive around five. He would be receiving a shock on arrival, from mild-temperatured, rarely-snowed-in Vancouver to his old home town. But he usually comes prepared, packing ample layers against the cold. And it's just as well that he loves snow, because there's plenty of it already this winter.

Traffic wasn't bad at all, so that was a point in our favour. And we were grateful for the intense cold since usually that is accompanied with clear skies and no untoward, unexpected storms in the near offing. It can be rather hellish driving in poor conditions to the airport; this time it was pretty smooth sailing driving.

The last time we arrived at the airport to pick him up in the winter, and in fact, many times previous to that as well, we drove through slick, icy road conditions and accompanying snowfogs with thick  traffic to trip us up our on-time plans. Similarly, the last time, which would have been this time last winter, we found the parking to be packed right in, and nowhere to be found was an empty parking spot. Not so this time. And we arrived with a bit of time to spare. His plane had already touched down and passengers were disembarking within ten minutes.

When we arrived the spacious arrivals area was clear of people. In an instant, it seemed, people were streaming in and soon the place was well crowded. Children are always drawn to the bronze one-and-a-half-times-lifesize sculpture of Canada's first Prime Minister, Sir John A. Macdonald and his cabinet colleague Sir George-Étienne Cartier.They love to clamber over the bench and into Sir John's lap, tweaking his cold metal nose and getting away with it.

The seasonal decorations in the hall were as colourful and comforting as always, with one large tree alight with decorations and a collection of Christmas-like objects sitting over the luggage carousels bearing the spirit of the season.

As usual, I anxiously scanned the people riding down on the escalators, trying to espie him as soon as I could. He's usually the one who brings up the rear, so to speak, never in a hurry like most other passengers. I was still looking through the steady arrival of people down the escalator to find others awaiting their arrival, little cries of pleasure and lots of hugging and hand-shaking taking place.

Then I turned around, hearing my husband say something, and directly beside me was our son, beaming mischievously like a rascal having managed his way toward us without my having spotted him. I threw up my arms and hugged him, overjoyed to see him after too long a wait, the intervening months full of activities and responsibilities that busies all of us.

We're thankful not to be among those tens of thousands, now reduced from hundreds of thousands, who have no power in their homes. The series of snowfalls we experienced, followed by ice pellets and freezing rain left us with an abundance of snow, with a light icy crust topping it all, but it was the areas of the province south of us that were left with the full brunt of an ice storm that broke massive tree limbs and felled power lines leaving at one point a third of a million people without power. That extended into Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.

Our older son and daughter-in-law escaped Toronto after the worst of the storm left the city in shambles. They had lost power too, but it was restored in the wee hours of the night, and they left for the airport not long afterward. While their flight was delayed several times it did proceed after all, though their luggage was mislaid for a three-hour period before they were reunited with it.

Our daughter and grandchild who live rurally are often without power for days at a time, meaning they cannot get well water since it's a system operated by an electric pump, nor heat, if violent winds or freezing rain outweigh the capacity of power lines to resist failure. This time they have also been spared the misery of a dark cold winter creeping into their home.

When we ventured into the ravine it was with great difficulty, having to clamber over the snowbanks of icy chunks of snow shoved at the side of the road when municipal road clearing takes place. Once over the snowbanks the short trudge to the trailhead is difficult when we're breaking the trail, and even when a few others have been there preceding us.

Beside the numbing cold penetrating its icy fingers into our winter garments and slapping our faces with its sting, the need to lumber forward on snow-piled trails is difficult; not so much so perhaps when we were younger, but certainly now it is, in spades. We had set out fairly late in the afternoon and since it was an overcast day, light was already encumbered with falling dusk on these, the slightest daylight times of the year.

We came across a little Akita we occasionally see being walked by an older man who loves seeing his dog cavorting in the snow; indeed our winter weather comes as close to the little dog's native Hokkaido as anywhere else on Earth, one might imagine. She was wearing a bright flickering little lamp on her collar, not so much to light her way as to alert her walker to her presence wherever she might happen to get herself off to, as light began to fail.

When our children were young -- not infants, but in their teens by then - there was a television program that we would all gather around to watch, anxious not to miss one single episode of a series that utterly fascinated us, as entertainment and a send-up of human nature although the creatures used as proxies looked nothing like humans. Fraggle Rock was a treat for us, one that made us laugh and feel good about everything. The characters were priceless, and their predicaments amusing beyond imagination, just as much as their solutions.

This isn't about Fraggle Rock, actually, it's about a family, or more particularly a woman whom I became familiar with just after we'd moved to our-then new house, and we were still in the workforce. So, bear with me, because it's an interesting look at human nature. No one, I imagine, would argue that humans are not complex creatures, motivated by many things in their past experience and their future aspirations, along with inherently-bred characteristics.

The woman to whom I make such allusion was younger than me by several decades; an earlier generation, and she was then in her mid-30s, mother of an emerging teen, married to a second husband, step-father to her son, and they lived directly across from us on this street of new homes. We gradually began to recognize and become familiar with our neighbours, but they eluded contact, keeping to themselves. Until one day I saw them walking together, husband and wife, up the street. Walking in the opposite direction, I greeted them, and they responded.

After that first tentative contact I used to, on occasion, speak with her. Increasingly so as I retired, and then she did as well. I imagine that they had opted to remain distant from their neighbours save for those living directly beside them with whom they would exchange light and casual bare acknowledgements because she felt herself to be an object of derision. And this is where Fraggle Rock comes in because the woman of whom I speak resembles one of its characters.

liftingfaces.com -- Marjorie the Trash Heap

Let me explain: this couple keeps abreast of all the latest trends, particularly in food and its preparation. They consider themselves gourmet cooks, and occasionally indulge in intricate preparations of elaborate dishes. Yet at least twice a week there are fast-food deliveries to their house. Which isn't too remarkable in and of itself, but for the fact that my friend's size is such that she is incapable of walking the distance from her home to the group mailbox.

When he was in high school her son's size intimidated the other boys who both feared and tormented him. In adulthood he grew into his size having learned not to lash back physically, unfamiliar with his own strength, able to pulverize a slighter boy for his insolent provocation, and himself serving the penalty for so doing.

His mother always doted on him and nothing she could do for him was enough; like shovelling money at  him when he was unemployed, enabling him to live extremely well, even without a steady income resulting from his own labours. He could always find employment; he had difficulties keeping a job. He was a skilled IT worker cursed with the inability to get along with others in the workplace. Understandably.

His step-father and mother had both worked for a software industry giant. But this is about the woman of the house whose son has long left for independence, living in  his own home, courtesy of his mother. Their own is a two-story-house, and it's hard to imagine this woman being capable of hauling herself up a set of stairs. She can barely haul herself up the two broad steps leading to her front porch. She is beyond corpulent, utterly, morbidly obese, perfectly rotund.

She is a pretty woman, with nice, regular facial features and once-blond hair. She has a friendly, attractive manner to those she becomes familiar with, which includes my own next-door neighbour. She has a sharp intelligence and considers herself an adept student of human nature. She is a cat lover and devotes much attention to her three cats, permitting two of them to wander the neighbourhood while the third is permitted outside only on a tie-leash.

Her aesthetic taste is impeccable. Her home carefully decorated and furnished with distinction and flair. Needless to say, she is limited in what she is able to wear, since it is difficult to find ready-made garments useful for something of her immense girth. She stands about five feet, two inches in height, and her weight, one might venture to guess, hovers slightly above three hundred pounds. Her husband is devoted to her and often in the mild months when she sits outside on her porch, brings her cups of tea.

Needless to say, she is extremely sensitive to offhand remarks that might hint on the improvidence of people not attending to their health through unwise lifestyle choices. She has been prescribed anti-depressant medication. She will not permit photographs of herself to be taken, even while she makes casual use of digital cameras to capture the images of others. Because of her immense size it is quite possible for her to appear on occasion as slovenly.

One might go to many lengths not to enter her home. Years ago, when her son brought home a young woman he had met who had at the time been homeless and whom he had taken into his own house to live with him, she informed me that the young woman's family had lived on welfare for generations. It was the best thing that could ever have happened to her, she said, that her son had given her haven. She herself was busy, she said, 'teaching' the young woman how to peform household tasks.

Starting with instructing her to clean out her boyfriend's mother's own house on a regular basis, on week-ends. The young woman had succeeded in finding a service job and week-ends were when she was available. Obviously, my neighbour felt she was being charitable, and 'doing the right thing' by 'training' the woman her son was living with, by having her work for her as a char. One treats such confidences with uncertain respect.

Her husband is still working when he can get contract jobs, his employment with their past employer having been down-sized, as popular vernacular would have it. They have no financial problems, as there was a sizeable inheritance she came into possession of about ten years ago, and even before then they were fairly high earners and had doubtless banked well. But she is resistant to hiring a professional house-cleaner, unwilling to pay for the task of maintaining a hygienic household.

The result of that is a well-appointed house full of expensive furniture, crystal stemware and porcelain dinnerware, all layered in the effluent of living sans scrupulous and necessary regular cleaning. There is a heavily nauseating, musty odour that emanates from the interior. Feline messes that never seem to be cleaned up leave their own distastefully wretched and lingering foul odours.

Little wonder that when I view her and think of her, what leaps to mind is that long-ago fascination with that Fraggle Rock character, Marjorie the Trash Heap.

Marjory and her sidekicks Philo (pink), and Gunge (gray) -- MuppetWiki

Our son in Toronto tells us its not anyone's idea of fun trying to get around Toronto in the wake of the icestorm they've recently experienced. Even wearing icers over boots doesn't guarantee smooth sailing, as it were. And they're now headed to Halifax to spend the holiday week with his wife's family close to Truro. Leaving Toronto now that the storm has passed, though not its effects, and heading out to Nova Scotia where the storm has also gravitated to, so they'll be coping doubly with the same weather system.

Power has been lost to hundreds of thousands of people in southern Ontario; 300,000 in Toronto alone, not very pleasant to say the least, at this time of year. No lighting during the shortest daylight hours of the year, and no heating during the time of year when it's most needed, and water systems in peril as well. Recalling what we went through in the winter of 1998 with the great ice storm that hit a huge geographic area, including ours with a week of incessant freezing rain that left a thick coating of ice over everything confronted us.

Peoples' water pipes were freezing, and some burst, creating additional problems for home owners during that dreadful time when the city here, as municipalities did elsewhere in Quebec, New York and even New Hampshire, opened up warming centres where those afflicted with power shutdowns as a result of power lines crashing down under the weight of the ice that gathered on them and fallen trees, felled resulting from ice buildup, were able to go for shelter.

Our younger son had been visiting with us from his home in Vancouver back then, and he urged me at that time to venture out toward the ravine just to see what was happening. We hadn't gone very far into the ravine, just the first few yards actually, when the incessant cracking sound of boughs breaking under the weight of the ice over a snow build-up was bringing down trees and tree limbs at an astonishing and dangerous rate. It had been difficult negotiating our way over the icy terrain and it didn't take much more to convince us to back off.

The ice covering every surface looked beautiful to be sure, but it also looked threatening with the knowledge that breaking a leg, driving into another vehicle on the road, or risking losing power in one's house drove people to excesses of caution, while others who were impacted by power breakdowns gathered to huddle for warmth in area community centers.

The spires of great old pines came down during that period, as did a large percentage of the birch trees in the ravine; one large bough of a huge willow peeled off and stayed that way, dangling, and it is how it remains to the present day, stubbornly resisting falling off, just hanging on despite the number of excessive-weather storms we've had since then.

We were surprised the following spring when we ventured to the White Mountain Range in New Hampshire to see the widespread damage the forests had sustained there, as well, where fallen trees in abundance locked us out of some of our mountain hikes, with no way to continue a hike we had commenced and having to turn back, disappointed at the aborted day's adventure.

We've had an endless succession of snowfalls this early in the winter season, this year. Necessitating endless bouts of shovelling to clear our walkways, front (and back, to enable our little dog to trot about in the backyard and evacuate or otherwise as the need arises) as well the driveway, so that we can exit and enter with our car as required. It's what everyone really has to do to keep up with the vagaries of the winter season.

It's nothing short of exhausting having to continually do all these clean-ups, helped immeasurably by the use of a mechanical device called a snow-thrower. Ours, purchased second-hand twenty-one years ago has been a reliable workhorse, which a slight amount of maintenance and an occasional repair has kept in its workable state. Of course such concerns are also alleviated by many of our neighbours making the personal decision that they would sign onto snow-cleaning contracts with outside sources, so their driveways are cleared after snowfalls with the use of tractors with front-end ploughs attached.

That clears the driveways for them but not their porches, decks or walkways, which must then be done by hand, shovelling. My husband has been curious about how much improved mechanically and in efficiency the new models of snow-throwers are, which have additional features that ours does not, like lighting, for example. And yesterday he discovered just how our trusty old snow-thrower compares in practical useage with newer models.

A long-time neighbour directly across the street from our home had day-surgery two days earlier, so that put him out of physical capabilities to exert himself. The neighbour to his right is another long-time neighbour, as is the one across the street, beside us. Both have young adults in their 20s living in their homes, and the neighbour sitting beside us is a particularly close friend of our post-surgery neighbour. The day before yesterday when there was a light covering of under two inches in the driveways, one of the young men removed the snow as a courtesy at the urgent behest of his mother.

And yesterday, after another full day of snowfall the driveways were again clogged with snow. The neighbour across the street right next to the post-surgical neighbour had cleaned out his driveway. And so had the neighbour right next to us. And my husband set about clearing the snow out of our driveway, made more difficult because the municipal crews had been by, finally, to clear the snow accumulation off the road, and in the process as usual, dumping hard, crusted and icy snow at the end of each driveway.

Once he was finished with our snow-removal chores, my husband went across to offer his services to our out-of-physical-commission neighbour. And he proceeded to use our neighbour's machine. Although it was only two years old, the light worked well, but the chute wouldn't move, and the controls did so only grudgingly with great effort required in the process. The piled up chunks of snow and ice at the foot of the driveway needed to be shovelled by hand, the machine couldn't cope, it simply rode over the mess, and wouldn't dig into it as our old one does.

My husband is 77 years of age, like me, and this is hardly the neighbourly assistance one might expect of an older neighbour, but it became abundantly clear that in this season of neighbourly concern and generosity the plight of someone unable to perform normal functions due to compromised health wasn't a concern of those living very close by, by those young enough to perform such a function without imperilling their physical well-being, but too accustomed to being oblivious to a social contract of being aware of the needs of others, to practise what the season preaches.

Today? Another full day of snow. We can only hope that to help them cope, their son, a strapping adult who lives fairly close by in his own house, will venture out to visit his mother and step-father to give them a hand, as a dutiful son might be expected to do.

We've finally reached the Winter Solstice, and this, the 21st day of December, is the shortest daylight-day of the year. We've acquired quite a depth of snow up until now, with more on the very near horizon, an additional fifteen to twenty centimeters anticipated by the time a new snowstorm set to begin blowing in by this afternoon and to continue on throughout the day on Sunday finally blows itself out. This, after days of light, continuous snowfall. Our world is a veritable wonderland of sparkling white.

We're thankful that the temperature has moderated from the minus-double-digits that made walking out in the woods for over an hour quite the expedition the last several weeks, reminiscent of those hardy souls clambering atop Everest, or trekking out in the Antarctic, though needless to say the severity of those climatic experiences is nothing compared to what we're exposed to, here.

We saw no one else out in the ravine yesterday. There were a few squirrels out and about, anxious to do their usual pilgrimage to the places where we usually leave peanuts for them. Squirrels tend to be skittish about newfallen, light snow. For one thing, in the winter when all is a monochromatic black-and-white, and they are no longer shielded by the green screen before leaf-fall, they're more visible. And as such, vulnerable to the possibility that a hawk or an owl, let alone a coyote or a raccoon might decide to feast on them. They tend to take preferentially to an aerial route to arrive at a destination if at all possible. Trying to avoid the deep snow, where they must exert more care, in a succession of leaps.

Not a bird to be sighted anywhere, however. We did see evidence, down by the now-frozen creek that a muskrat had surfaced from an opening in the ice, its tail trailing after it, making the only at-first puzzling impression on the soft, fluffy snow.

That soft, fluffy snow has reached great heights. It humps right over the tree stumps that were formerly at our waist level, smoothing and raising and rendering the appearance of ghostlike presence. A very slight wind urged the burden of snow off overhead boughs and when that happened, a shower of light snow would gather under the bough as it rid itself of its burden, an otherworldly, ectoplasmic apparition, beyond beautiful.

All sound was muffled, all was still, tranquil, abundant with captivating scenes of evergreens appearing like picture-postcards of a perfect Canadian winter. If, indeed, the temperature continued to hover at minus-five-degrees Centigrade it would indeed present for us as the perfect Canadian winter.

By the time we were both seventeen years old we had already been 'going steady' as the quaint vernacular of the time had it, meaning that we were completely committed to one another, for the past three years. We saw our future together. We wanted to be together. We thought it a fairly good idea to just leave together for some unknown destination -- an elopement -- and arrange for a civil marriage. No one other than ourselves need know. In that marriage we would discover the deep satisfaction of having formally bound ourselves to one another.

I can't recall how it happened, it was so long ago, but our tenuous, tentative plans were somehow revealed to our parents. Who were scandalized. They had obviously envisioned a proper marriage, a social event of a type expected in our ethnic community; a religious ceremony - although my parents were not religious and my parents-in-law-to-be were, only in the most loose sense. Followed by a catered dinner to which 'close' friends and family members were invited, and finally a 'reception' where elaborate baked goods and a giant wedding cake, music and dancing entertained all.

Marriage? Our tender age mitigated against it, they insisted. And it should be done properly. First an engagement declared, and when a year had passed, then the marriage could commence. We were unhappy about this, but realized our youthful state did not favour our decision, and the attendant details. I was working by then but my then-boyfriend was still attending school. We hadn't the financial wherewithal to be independent. It simply wasn't practical.

We reluctantly shelved our impetuosity, and carried on as we always had, having consulted with our parents on both sides to arrive at what might seem to them to be a suitable marriage date, and that turned out to be June 5, 1955. And the venue was chosen, and the details of launching such a venture undertaken. A lovely day, to be sure, but a day both of us cringed at the prospect of being front and centre within, neither of us liking the idea of the kind of ceremonious pomp and expense such an event always resulted in. It wasn't what we had envisaged for ourselves.

He and I went to a local jewellery store, looked around at engagement marriage ring sets, and after awhile decided on a design we both liked. And we put a deposit on the set, making arrangements for monthly payments until the full price was achieved, and we would be able to claim it for ourselves, in time for the ceremony. An independent decision we felt fully capable of engaging in. It was, after all, our own life and future we were planning.

When my mother-in-law-to-be discovered what we had done, she was emphatic that we return to the jewellery store and cancel our arrangements. We were to go to her choice of jewellery store and there find a suitable replacement, and make similar arrangements to pay off the set of our choice there, through her; we would give her the monthly $5 and she would see the store was paid. We felt entirely intimidated, and dutiful children, we did just that. I mourned the loss of my preferred rings, and never did very much admire the ones we felt coerced into selecting in abandonment of our own choice.

Just as well none of this ever impacted on us and our shared life together other than in the most peripheral of ways; unfond memories of 'our' wedding, though not of our marriage, and everything related to the event other than the permanence of our love and devotion to one another.

Our granddaughter has been living on tenterhooks of nervous hope and anticipation ever since she submitted her early applications for university. She used her Grade 11 academic average, just a tad under 85, in the hopes that her applications would bear fruit. She had spent the entire summer before diligently searching out the information she needed to determine which of Canada's universities would best serve her academic, and eventually, professional needs.

No detail was too insignificant for her to consider in her passionate determination to pursue studies that would follow through to her pursuit of a law career. Although she is a very hard worker, consumed with doing the best her grey matter would allow in presenting class-assigned materials to gain her recognition as a potential scholar with well defined plans for her future, she always bemoaned the fact that her intimate girlfriends were cleverer than she, able effortlessly to gain high marks that somehow always seemed to escapee her. She wanted her grade point average to be in the mid-90s, at the very least.

Her friends, she always told me, are brilliant, whereas she is a plodder. A plodder, I remind her, with brains, determination and high aspirations, a plodder meant to study law, with an orderly cranium accepting of incremental details. As long as she was prepared to apply herself and work hard to attain her goal, it would never elude her.

Her first acceptance came a month following the original applications, from Dalhousie; it was an acceptance from a university with an excellent reputation and a highly-regarded law faculty. She was holding out for her first two choices, University of Toronto or York University. Despite her uncles telling her she could go anywhere her first year, then transfer to either of her first choices, she was desperately committed in her mind to an initial attendance at her first-choices, then continuing her academic career there, and nowhere else.

Yesterday came her acceptance from York University and she is in Heaven over it. The only thing that could possibly surpass her euphoria over that acceptance would be one from University of Toronto where she would like to obtain her undergraduate degree then go on to focus on the study of law.

Our ravine jaunt on Saturday, while pleasant enough to the eye was a real exercise in exposure to physical misery. The high was minus-14-degrees C. with a windchill of minus-29-degrees. And it most certainly felt like it. It was one of those winter days when the wind was mean and the atmosphere so wretchedly cold that that the merest hint of a breeze would have been sufficient to increase the misery quotient. This was a whipping wind.

We managed to get through about three-quarters of our usual jaunt, before I suggested we make a speedy retreat and head for home. My face felt as though it was afire with the cold and my digits, despite three layers of combined mittens and gloves, felt miserably stiff with cold. Through four layers under a down jacket I still felt a chill. It wasn't the best of all possible days to be out enjoying nature for hours at a stretch, so we made for home.

Sunday was colder yet, the temperature unable to nudge above minus-19, and Monday was no better, while Tuesday rose one full degree to minus-18. We decided to give our usual ravine ramble a pass, to wait for more opportune and forgiving weather. On those extremely cold days the sun is often up there sailing in an ocean of frigid blue, as opposed to the sky being the colour of pewter, almost matching the snow below in a lovely icy monochromatic scheme of pure visual glory.

When the sun is out on these days it tends to help warm the interior of the house. The heat of the sun is enough, even in such frigid weather, to glow its heat through the stained glass windows of our home. The darker colours of glass are hot to the touch, and the heat is transmitted to the house interior. As for the visual splendour of the sun beaming its rays through the stained glass, that too is beyond splendid, edging fairly close to spectacularly pleasing to the aesthetic eye.

My husband is an inveterate shopper. Far more than I am. So if there's an hint of a reason for him to go out gadding about the various and many types of shopping experiences in our close geographic vicinity, he is quick to offer his services. We're expecting our youngest child (who is now half a century of age) to visit with us for a week. From visiting us he will fly off to Yellowknife to attend a conference there. It's debatable how much more frigid and snow-packed he will find the North West Territories after visiting us here in Ottawa. For we've been groaning under the frigid chill of a rather unusual series of cold snaps. The most recent of which has given us day-time highs of -18-degrees C.

With the wind chill factored in it's just about as miserable as can be imagined. Anticipating our son's visit with us the thought occurred that he's more likely to eat free-range organic chicken, if we had it on offer; he's very fastidious about what he consumes. He is lean to underweight, abstemious to an alarming degree. A nutritionist he recently consulted recommend that he incorporate a little more animal protein in his diet for optimum health; formerly he had eschewed all animal products for decades and it seems as though that diet deficit may have impaired his general health.

Off he went, my husband, to see what a nearby specialty shop had on offer, and he brought back minced chicken and chicken breasts as well, both organic, free-range. They've been set aside and frozen until in a week or more they will be called upon to service our dinner plates. His acute sense of curiosity about everything never subsides to the extent that he will confine himself to a singular purchase. He also brought home other items, including several pounds of minced pork and minced veal.

Natural ingredients for a French-Canadian tourtiere.  So that was my focus for today. What could be more suitable on a miserable, overcast, snowy, extremely icy day than a hot meat pie? Needless to say there was far too much for just one pie, so I ended up baking four pies. Preparing the double crusts for four pies isn't my idea of fun, but it's manageable. Three of the pies have been frozen for quick meals on other busy days.

And the last will be warmed up for presentation at our dinner table this evening. Along with white asparagus which we'll be trying for the first time. And a pear-plum compote that I thought would be a fairly good foil for the otherwise-nutrient-heavy meal. To make the pies a little more nutritious I did add a few large carrots and several potatoes that had been grated into the meat filling as it cooked.

It will all be history by this evening....

Although we had Environment Canada assurances that yesterday's snowfall would surrender to calm and cessation by noon, that didn't, after all, materialize. It had snowed throughout the night before, with high winds prevailing, making it fairly nasty for anyone having to suffer outside low temperatures of minus-24-degrees Centigrade and blowing snow, snarling any late-night traffic and making it generally miserable with what might be thought of as mid-winter conditions. Yet winter has not officially arrived, not until the 21st.

Right after breakfast my husband went out to shovel out the driveway and walkways, even while the snow was still coming down, sometimes desultorily, sometimes fiercely, driven by the prevailing winds. He had already, before breakfast, gone out to hand-shovel the deck, and the walkways below in the backyard to enable our little dog to get about to perform his usual morning functions.

Mid-day saw him out again, cleaning up with the snowthrower. And he left it afterward sitting in the garage, knowing that when the snowplough eventually came through it would fill the bottom of the driveway with hard chunks of snow and ice, necessitating removal before overnight icy conditions leave it almost impermeable and resistant to movement the following morning.

As we anticipated, the municipal snowplough came through just before dinner, necessitating yet another struggle with snow removal. And enough snow had fallen in the interval between the morning clearances and that juncture to require the snowthrower to be employed for the entire driveway and front walkways to clear a way through for morning newspaper delivery and our own use later in the day.

From the news, it appears that Montreal got hit with snow levels over our own. It's a wide swath this storm is covering, first hitting Toronto then moving off to eastern Ontario and finally lingering over Quebec and the Maritimes; Halifax has its share of problems. But then, at the same time, due to another weather system that winter is so famous for, many U.S. States have been stricken by an unusual snowfall.

And then, of course, there's the Middle East, struggling to release itself from the unexpected effects of a cold and snow system that has blanketed much of that region, with severe consequences, the worst in 60 years.

Yesterday was a day for bonanzas of sorts. My husband went out to the library to look for a few DVDs, to discover a few films we might like to view. That's our Saturday-night entertainment. And just as good a way to spend the late evening hours as any. Particularly given the Environment Canada storm watch in effect; heavy snow with aggressive winds whipping the veil of snow off the roof and onto the grounds below.

As we viewed the film, the family room darkened, I looked over from time to time at the windows. When it snows they light up a luminescent pink or mauve colour, overlaying the stained glass and it's a glorious sight to behold. The stained glass takes on various appearances reflecting the quality and quantity of light that's current, an ever-changing, always-mesmerizing sight.

While he was at the library he discovered a 'friends of the library' book sale was in progress. Tailor made for a bibliophile, an avid reader, an omnivorous consumer of the printed word. When he finally returned he had with him two films one of which we viewed, titled The Duchess. He also brought back two bags-full of books, and one of those bags held books meant for my delectation.

I am beyond delighted to have now a book by Bernard Lewis that I haven't yet read, What Went Wrong? Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response, another by Paul Berman, Terror and Liberalism, A Fabulous Kingdom, the Exploration of the Arctic by Charles Officer and Jake Page, Thomas Friedman's From Beirut to Jerusalem, and Giles Milton's Paradise Lost, Smyrna 1922, The Destruction of Islam's City of Tolerance.

Nice to know there are so many discriminating readers around out there in greater society.

As bitterly cold yesterday was, today is even more so. Environment Canada confirming that a winter storm is on the way, to begin in the late afternoon. The high for today is minus-17-degrees centigrade, and with the wind chill it will feel like minus-29-degrees. But because we're expecting fifteen centimetres of snow overnight and another ten or so tomorrow, with continuing cold, it's unlikely we'll be able to get out for our usual ravine walk tomorrow. All the more reason to do so today, before the storm enters.

Yesterday it was cold enough, the high at minus-14, the wind making it seem much, much colder. Even so, there was Heckle and Jekyll out prowling around their home territory on the large old pine sitting at the foot of the long drop into the ravine. With them now is another little squirrel, a small grey, that appears also to have made his abode in the pine. We didn't see too many others out throughout the course of our frigid walk.

We did come across a ravine acquaintance walking his sibling border collies. The female being the one who, a month or so ago, lost her tail when it became catastrophically entwined with some underbrush, since nicely healed and she with a portion left of her tail. Only this time, he had on leash another little border collie, complete with muzzle. This, he told us, was a litter-mate of his own two five-and-a-half-year-old border collies. It had been adopted by his daughter and son-in-law. And they had to surrender it, no longer able to cope.

The little dog's needs had been ignored, kept isolated for much of the day in a mudroom of his daughter's house. A stay-at-home mother, she had her hands full looking after three small children, with a fourth on the way. They had almost surrendered the dog to a farmer after it had bitten their oldest child, not yet attending school. They knew it wasn't the dog's fault; the children were merciless with the dog, forever pulling its hair, tussling with it, climbing all over it.

So the man and his wife, who is no longer out in the workforce, took the little dog in, rescuing it from both the neglect of their daughter's household and the fate of being a neglected farm dog. Gradually, they're earning the trust of the border collie, which is beginning to reciprocate affection, and taking some mentoring guidance from the other two border collies, his very own siblings. But the muzzle must stay on, because of the dog's reaction when it is feeling particularly frustrated. They've set out to give the dog what its former life had lacked.

It had been bereft of the company of other dogs and people, continually confined, and rarely given exercise, let alone any kind of sustained attention which such intelligent dogs crave. We watched as he took the dog off leash, and it dashed madly over the snowy trail toward where it had obviously seen something move in the distance. The three dogs become activated by one another, working as a team to herd both one another and any prospective movements in the landscape. They are, after all, bred as working dogs, and recognized as the most intelligent breed of canines.

It's beyond sad to see their talents and their intelligence not recognized and given their just due.

He came upon us well before the arrival of the two women walking with him, the young woman whose dog he was and her mother, who was visiting, we were later informed, and staying with her daughter for a few days. The dog was only seven months old and true to her breed, friendly and sweet-tempered from her antics and her approach, her submissiveness and eagerness to be noticed and praised. Riley, of course, indulged in his usual mode of greeting toward other dogs, emitting distinct snarls and growls, but the golden retriever ignored him and ingratiated herself with us.

Though she would have been happy enough to play with our little dog, had he been willing. At the age of thirteen, he is long, long over that kind of spontaneous invitation to socialize; the frantic antics of young dogs happy with life and eager to express their buoyant extremes of joy and friendliness are not to his liking.

When the two women caught up to where we were, as I was depositing peanuts inside the many convenient crevices of a very old spruce tree, and the dog was cavorting about us, they focused their attention on Riley, while we observed the shenanigans of their dog, expressing itself as very young dogs are wont to do, and delighting people with their acrobatic curiosity. The older woman, walking with a cane, thought Riley was beyond adorable. Poor Riley, it was so bitterly cold yesterday that he had to wear his boots and we had snuggled him into no fewer than three layer, two sweaters and a waterproof coat.

Snow was gently falling, so light you might hardly notice it. There was a blustery wind, however, picking up snow from laden boughs and tossing it about. The sun had gone in and the temperature was minus 11-Centigrade, cold enough that we had wrapped ourselves in layers as well. I struggled to pluck peanuts out of the bag and deposit them where they were usually cached, knowing if I removed even one of the layers of gloves-and-mittens amounting to three layers, I'd suffer for it, and it would take my fingers hours to cast off the feeling of being frozen.

The two women decided to walk alongside us as we strode along our usual circuit. The young woman partially familiar with the ravine and its trails and happy to show her mother around. My husband gallantly assisted the young woman's mother in a gradual descent, but as we moved on further into the ravine, we came to a junction where there was a choice of turning left or right, but each choice led to long uphill climbs and I suggested to the young woman that now would be a good time to turn back, retrace her steps to where she had parked her vehicle, because her mother would experience great difficulty ascending those hills.

She called her dog to her, and I was once again struck by the name she had given that lovely little female bundle of curious adventuring spirit. The name was Luka. An unusual name. One that I associated with the only person I'd ever known to have that name. And he was a psychopath, in the news only a few years earlier. Luka Magnotta who had murdered a young university student, then dismembered him, videoing the entire episode, and sending the severed limbs through the mail system to the attention of federal and provincial politicians.

Making a statement, to be sure. I wondered if it were at all possible that the young woman had no inkling of the burden she had placed upon her lovely dog of carrying a name that reminded one of gruesome wretchedness in human behaviour.

We learned, twenty-two years ago when we first took possession of our then-new house that we would no longer be honoured to receive daily mail delivery at our front door. Henceforth, we would have to become accustomed to walking up the street to a large compartmented mailbox arrangement that Canada Post had designed to accustom people to the fact that its mail delivery stratagem had undergone a significant change.

We've long since become accustomed to it. And now, Canada Post Corporation surprised everyone by announcing yesterday that the group post-boxes will become the norm. Inner-city areas that had for a century been the recipients of door-to-door mail delivery, come rain or shine, sleet or hurricane, would be coming to an end.

Our daughter, who lives with our granddaughter in a converted 1864 log home that was once a rural area schoolhouse, like her rustic neighbours living on their country acreage, will continue to have mail delivered to their roadside mailboxes by contracted truck-driving mail deliverers.

The geographic differences in our homes is not entirely convenient. We went swiftly from seeing our daughter and granddaughter daily while through the first nine years of our granddaughter's life, we were her daily care-givers, to seeing them far less frequently. If we mail a letter or parcel to them from where we live, from a postal outlet, they can receive that missive or packet a day later, two days at most. If we send a letter to our son in Toronto or our son in Vancouver, it will take a week for delivery. Not very efficient for a service that once boasted it could deliver coast-to-coast in a matter of days.

Taking advantage of the instantaneous character of the Internet is far more immediate, much like using the telephone. The postal service upon which we so depended to keep ourselves in contact and communication with meaningful people in our lives, let alone for business-related reasons, has fallen on hard times. As an institution delivering a service there are other, competing services that are far more efficient. We can bank and pay all our bills on line. We can donate to charities on line.

If our granddaughter has a list of books she's interested in, I can go on line and have Amazon deliver them in several days' time, out-competing Canada Post by a wide margin. If I ask our granddaughter what she might like for a gift for Chanukah she can herself go on line and do some shopping then send me the link to evaluate her choice -- upon which we discuss options, agree on a mutually satisfactory solution to the dilemma of !which one?!, and the gift will be ordered and delivered in swift order.

So sad, too bad, Canada Post.

There's just something about most big-box retail establishments that doesn't agree with me. Actually as I grow older I find I'm increasingly averse to any retail establishments. Perhaps it's a holdover from earlier years when money was so scarce and I always felt uncomfortable in retail shops, when the price tags on items that I found personally attractive were always beyond my reach. That led to a bit of an aversion to being in those places.

Now that I am able to afford just about anything I might want to acquire, I am restrained by another feeling, and that is that there's nothing I really need, and not an awful lot I really want. As well, that old price-sticker reaction is still alive and well. I find most items for sale grossly over-priced in value; which is to say their intrinsic value is not necessarily reflected in their overblown price.

Perhaps that's why I eventually found myself migrating to second-hand shops, in particular not just any second-hand shop, but those operated by the Salvation Army. Although most of the items available there have been as is said in polite circles 'pre-owned' many are in excellent shape and present as quite attractive owner-options. I don't really think of it as acquiring someone else's discards. On the other hand, we've become such a throw-away society of impulse shoppers that people have a tendency to buy things then forget about them until they actively proceed to cleaning out their closets.

I am amazed at the quality of some of the goods for sale at such shops. And gratified that many of them appear in mint condition. It isn't difficult to persuade myself that such objects and apparel represent good buys.

View of the Indoor Fountain at Place D’Orleans Shopping Centre.
Photo by orleansonline.ca, 2007

 

Yesterday I was prevailed upon by circumstances to accompany my husband to a nearby very large indoor shopping mall. It's a retail establishment-condominium I hadn't stepped foot in for the past fifteen years, at least. It's modern and attractive and festively decorated for the Christmas season, though actual postings of Christmas appear absent in favour of Holiday and Season, a bit of an absurdity.

In the mall, sitting on the gleaming marble floors there are sparkly, bright-red artificial evergreens festooned with lovely blinking lights. There are green wreaths with tinkly ornaments brightening the atmosphere. And there are hordes of anxious shoppers looking for that perfect gift for someone in their lives. For 'tis the season of gifting.



I felt overstimulated and intimidated in the place. Its size and aggressive marketing offended my sense of priorities and values. The oppressively loud sound, absent of traditional Christmas music, but full of intrusive popular music did nothing to relax my sense of alienation. Walking over the spacious floor plans with its several levels (thankfully we remained on one level and traversed but a relatively small portion of even that) seemed physically onerous to me. For some peculiar reason my feet felt like lead, and I found it difficult to walk normally, as though I had been burdened by a peculiar and inexplicable weight I found difficult to carry around with me or shrug off.



I felt anxious to get our reason for being there to begin with over with, to escape the large, colourful confines of the place. Having conducted our business we made haste to remove ourselves, and a great sense of relief overtook me; escape from materialism and unbeatable commerce? I don't quite think so, there's something else that defines the experience, I just can't identify it.

Yesterday we had a light snowfall. Enough to restore the early-winter snowpack to the depth it had acquired before several days of above-freezing temperature reduced it somewhat. And enough to ensure that it would have to be shovelled away, off the walkways and off the driveway. Some freezing rain came down afterward, which turned again into light snow by evening and overnight. More, much more to come.

But since then, it has turned considerably colder, and we're continually reminded by these alternations how changeable weather in this part of Canada can be. And that we'd better hang in there, since winter has not yet really started. More, much more to come.

When it's really cold, I mean frigid, the rhododendrons in the garden react. For their first ten years of life in the garden they were always covered with winter garden blankets to preserve their life over-winter. I haven't covered them in years now. And I remember that when we used to hike in the winter in Georgia in forested 'mountain' areas, the rhododendrons and the wild magnolia which never lost their leaves there as they do here, used to react to extreme cold (although never as 'extreme' as what we are accustomed to) by shrivelling, reducing the area of their leaves in effect, to try to protect themselves.

And this is what our rhododendrons do on very cold days. Looking exquisitely miserable in the process. And then, when more moderate days come along they brighten up, loosen the grip on the leaf surface and open up flat again, looking quite composed. The magnolias, which do lose their foliage in this geographic area, have hundreds of flower buds that developed in late summer. They're fuzzy and promising of great form and colour come spring, when they'll begin growing in size until they burst into flower.

I've also noticed something quite touching. In the late spring we plant all of our urns and garden pots with what in our climate are annuals, but in more temperate climates are perennials. Among the flowers we usually plant fillers like vines for additional texture, colour and contrast. The vinca vines, I noticed a long time ago, have a tendency to send down roots if the vines happen to grow long enough, and plants become established in the garden, through those stray bits that root.

On the porch we have an urn whose contents are emptied in preparation for the long winter months, in late fall, when the 'annuals' are not equipped by their origins to cope with extreme cold become limp and frozen. Up come those I can overwinter and re-introduce the following spring. It hadn't occurred to me to do this with any of the vines; much too fussy and time- and space-consuming.

And then, months ago, I noticed that on the bottom left-hand corner of the porch there was a tiny, sturdy little vine growing. When the weather becomes extremely frigid, its leaves pucker and draw themselves together just as the rhododendron leaves do. And when the weather takes a moderate turn, the little vinca leaves bravely broaden out again. Obviously, that tiny bit of vine, left over from the time that I clear out all the plants in the fall, had established itself through a root system it developed and now lives, determinedly, between the bricks and mortar of the side of our house. Long may it live!

By the terms of the 1906 Anglo-Chinese Treaty, negotiated bilaterally in Peking without Tibetan involvement, the British government discarded everything the Younghusband invasion had achieved and formally returned Tibet to the Chinese orbit. A year later the Anglo-Russian Convention secured Russian recognition of Chinese suzerainty in Tibet in exchange for British acceptance of Russian domination of Mongolia. The Younghusband invasion had crushed the Tibetan army and left the nation defenseless even as it provoked the wrath of the Chinese and challenged them to exert their influence in a distant land they had long been content to ignore. The subsequent diplomatic betrayal of Tibet not only opened the door to Chinese aggression, it virtually obliged Peking to act.

The Chinese responded with an invasion force led by a notorious warlord, General Chao Erh-feng, who would become known throughout Tibet as Butcher Chao. A ruthless fighter who vowed to leave not a person or a dog alive, he marched his army through Batang and Derge, subduing all of eastern Tibet, leaving in his wake ravaged monasteries, devastated villages, and rivers stained with blood. Arriving at Bah in 1905, he murdered four monks. When word reached him that a neighbouring monastery at Lithang was restive, he summoned two Tibetan officials and when they confirmed the report, he promptly had them beheaded. When the people of the valley proved unruly he dispatched his troops and slaughtered 1, 210 monks and laymen. In June 1906 his forces surrounded the Gongkar Manling monastery, decapitated the four monks sent out to negotiate, and proceeded to kill and pillage, burning sacred texts, melting down for coinage the gold and copper icons, looting the temples, and reducing the sacred enclosures to ashes and dust. On the third day of the first Tibetan month of the Iron-Dog year, Butcher Chao and his army marched into Lhasa, blasted the Jokhang and Potala Palace with artillery fire, and looted the city, raping women and children and slaughtering any monk who resisted. By the end of February 1910 he had quelled resistance and taken control of the capital, leaving tens of thousands of Tibetans dead.

The Dalai Lama, having only returned from exile in China in December 1909, fled in advance of the Chinese armies to Phari, where the entire population of the Chumbi Valley rallied to his defense. He reached Yatung the following day, where he was sheltered by David Macdonald... That night while the Dalai Lama rested, Macdonald placed a guard at his door, and when, the following morning, Chinese officials appeared, demanding that the British hand over the revered lama, Macdonald had them seized and searched for weapons. Learning that a larger Chinese force would soon be descending upon Yatung, the Dalai Lama, disguised as a common postal runner, escaped in the night and with his entourage braved the ice and snow of the Jelep La to reach Gatong, the Sikkimese village nearest the frontier. There the Tibetan party found safety and rest in a telegraph hut, protected throughout the following night by two British soldiers. At daylight they continued to Kalimpong and beyond to Darjeeling, where a house was placed at the Dalai Lama's disposal by Charles Bell.

From: Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory, and The Conquest of Everest. Wade Davis

Courtesy of Ed Webster

George Mallory, upper left, and his team of Sherpas, photographed by John Noel, June 7, 1922.

He's gone off on another one of his errands. This time to drop by Canadian Tire to pick up a package of screws. Those in our cleats that we pull over our hiking winter boots need to be replaced. We've had to begin wearing them already, perambulating through the ravine, because a return to icy weather after a brief period of slight warming has resulted in the snow becoming quite icy and difficult to navigate without the help of the cleats. Wearing them adds to the weight of the boots, but that's how it goes.

While he's out he always finds reasons to drop in at other places. Over the past few years there has been an amazing number of big box and boutique shops, restaurants and foodie-type stores opening not far from where we live. It's rather mind-boggling, actually, but in a sense it's also extremely convenient since we never have to go very far from home to drop in to whatever place that sells items we might be interested in acquiring. And that's aside from the large malls that exist fairly nearby, as well. A shopper's paradise, if that has any meaning.

Invariably, he tends to drop by any number of other places if his destination is one particular place. I never know what he'll bring home, from foodstuffs we already have ample of in the house, to another pair of house slippers for me, or warm tights, or cozy scarfs, or anything of that ilk. I also know that he's on the prowl, becoming ever more desperate to find something of aesthetic value that I will like and wear that he can give me for my 77th birthday. In the past he's bought me rings, watches, bracelets, but how many of each of those does anyone really want to possess?

I've asked him not to bother; they're scandalously priced, not worth his effort, and the cost. But just as he rarely heeds me when it comes to other things he has his mind set on, he'll likely simply proceed as usual, this time, too. It's hard not to feel conflicted about this; it's very nice to have the acknowledgement of another birthday, it's beyond lovely to see the pride and happiness in his face when he presents me with a gift.

The gift itself cannot eclipse the work and creativity he puts into a birthday card that he makes and presents to me for each of these occasions and I've got quite the collection, marking the years that have gone by.

When we reached our 20s after several years of marriage, we decided we would embark on home ownership, using the small amount of money we had been able to accumulate through savings, and we found a place we could afford, a small, basic semi-detached bungalow in the far suburbs of Toronto, which the owner sold to us for $14,000. We struggled to afford the first and second mortgage payments and taxes which amounted to less than $100 monthly.

Several years later our children began arriving; three, one after the other in a three-year-period. It was a real effort in financial management to ensure that we all had fresh fruits and vegetables in our diet. The house had been built with a small box at the side door with doors that opened both on the exterior and interior of the building; a box where I could leave notice for the daily milk delivery of how much milk, butter, eggs, cottage cheese or sour cream I might require. The cash in coinage to pay for the deliveries would be left in the box along with the note, sometimes not, and I would be given credit until such time as I was able to pay the amount owing.

Now, supermarket shelves burst with colourful displays of fruits and vegetables from all over the world of types that had never been seen back then when our world was young and so were we. An influx of immigrants from all over the world bringing with them their cuisine and familiarity with exotic agricultural products also widened our sphere of whole foods' potentials for the dinner table.

That has gone in lock-step with large food processing corporations loading down those same supermarket shelves and freezer compartments with highly processed foods bearing scant resemblance to the whole foods we had always been familiar with. Ironically, just as greater choices of various types of fresh foods have become available to shoppers, so have the selections of pre-processed, pre-prepared foods posing as nutritious alternatives to home-prepared meals.

In a busy, distracted world where lifestyles have changed beyond recognition from the time when I was a stay-at-home mother for our three young children and my hsuband's meagre salary was stretched impossibly in the hopes we could provide the necessities of life, the simple art of basic food preparation has become a mystery and a nuisance to too many people.

Children are no longer introduced to basic, nutritional foods, but are given highly salted, sugared, fat-laden quasi-food products to sustain their physical needs as they grow into adulthood. And they perpetuate the cycle with their own children; using the convenience of take-out foods or supermarket-accessed pre-ready meals to accelerate the work of providing nutrition on a daily basis.

The result is an explosion of life-style diseases, preventable chronic conditions, conditions that could be reversed, but most often are not, because it is simply too inconvenient, requiring a total lifestyle change. That lifestyle change from a basic living pattern to a more modern one where people of middle-age who were sedentary and inclined to over-indulge at the dinner table, led to over-40s being diagnosed with Type 2, Adult-onset diabetes.

And now, health authorities clamour to get out the message that growing numbers of children are being diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes, a condition requiring a careful balance of food, medication and activity, but which could be reversed through that same formula, absent the medication.

What is true for mature adults with Adult-onset diabetes is true for children acquiring the condition; a shortened lifespan, a compromised condition of health due to cardiovascular and neuropathic conditions that may result in heart attacks, strokes, impaired sight, amputation of limbs.

That's a fairly steep price to pay for the convenience of never having to exercise oneself through walking to a destination, or having to tediously prepare meals using basic nutritional foodstuffs.

Since the onset of winter conditions in the ravine with snow covering the forest floor and much, much colder weather prevailing with the usual share of high winds, Heckle and Jekyll, the two small black squirrels who are always in one another's company have resumed their winter-time residence in the old pine at the foot of the first long decline into the ravine proper, close to where we enter the ravine from our home just up the hill and down the street.

They are there to greet us, or at least to await our depositing of peanuts in the cracks of the old pine's trunk. We admonish them daily to allow the peanuts left on the pine to suffice their growing winter stockpile, and leave off gathering others we cache nearby for other squirrels who also venture by daily in hopes of securing their own storageable edibles.

We wonder, at times, just how far afield some of those squirrels who have become accustomed to our daily presence slogging through the woodland trails and depositing peanuts, do actually venture. There was the rare occasion when we would see our old friend Stumpy skittering along on our back fence. At those times he wouldn't respond to us, as he always did in the ravine. While he's been gone the last few years, Stumpette has taken his place, showing up in the most unexpected places throughout our ravine ramble, looking in our usual cache places and sometimes confronting us expectantly, but never outside the ravine. It was easy enough to recognize them because of their severely truncated tails.

On Monday, when I happened to be shaking out some of my lambswool dusters at the front door, a small black squirrel suddenly appeared close to the porch and hunkered itself down on its back paws, front paws up, as if in expectation. I hardly hesitated, closed the door and ran over to the back door where the peanuts are kept, scooped up a few, returned to the front door, and there he still was, waiting. In fact, the little thing approached closer, albeit gingerly, and waited again until I tossed several peanuts toward him whereupon he scooped them up and disappeared.

Thereafter when I was shaking out those dusters, there he would appear, slightly bolder each time, and each time I responded with peanuts. When, slightly later, I was shaking the dustmop out at the back door, to my amazement there he was again. Granted, since the snow has settled its permanent presence on our landscape, I've taken to putting out a few peanuts on the back steps, and it's likely this is what has inspired the persistence of the squirrel, if indeed it is the same squirrel each time, and it likely is.

I just wonder if there is a recognition quotient here as well, whether this is a squirrel who migrates when the spirit takes it, from the ravine, to the street and beyond, into the backyards of houses. Whether, by extension, there is something about me personally that is recognizable to a squirrel long accustomed to my transitory presence in the ravine.

Our friendship began about forty years ago. A mutual acquaintance put us in touch with one another. Actually, there was a group of four; myself and three other aspiring women writers, two of whom lived in California, another in Massachusetts. The latter was the only one I ever met in person, when we drove there once, from a holiday vacation in New Hampshire, and that too was many years ago, over thirty in fact. And she is now long dead. One of the two in California didn't maintain the conversation we all shared by mail after the first decade, and I've no idea what became of her.

And the third remained faithful to our correspondence, and regular letters went back and forth between us for decades. For a little while we lost touch, when we went abroad to live for a number of years. But about five years ago I discovered she was using email to connect with those she had extensive geographic friendships with and we re-connected, taking up where we left off, as it were.

But not exactly, since so much time had elapsed from our original decades of bringing one another up to date on what was happening with ourselves, our families, our writing passions. Our children skipped from being teen-agers to middle-age. She had two children and they produced two grandchildren. We had three children and they produced one grandchild. She is a little older than I am, consequently her grandchildren are older than ours is; they are concluding the final stages of their academic education in their professions of choice, and ours is just preparing to enter university.

Her husband died from complications of diabetes after years of struggling to survive the many afflictions that overtook him, a year ago. In the interim, after his retirement and their leisure time permitting, they travelled extensively as tourists around the world. Until it came to a point when he was no longer able to suppress the pain and anxiety he was under, in favour of quenching their curiosity. She is now alone in the house that they lived in for so many years. She has remained active in her literary-arts community all this time, and she has had many like-minded acquaintances outside the U.S. that she maintains contact with. She has won her share of recognition as a writer, and has felt profound satisfaction in that part of her life.

Her health, never the best, has been impressing upon her the realities of old age and incapacitation due to chronic illness, lately. Her arthritis and neuropathy that plagues her as a result of her own diabetes has made it increasingly difficult to get around. And although we regularly communicate in light little reminders that we are still here, I wasn't surprised to find in my mailbox a greeting card and letter from her, using the old medium of delivery we had once depended on to maintain contact with old friends.