Whoops! The calender, it seems, has slipped its seasonal mooring. Here we are, under the impression that we're closing in on the middle of April, and December has nudged her aside, and re-entered the picture.

The scene of wild wind swirling snow about greeted our still-sleepy eyes, widening them in disbelief. This return to winter is not one we feel inclined to embrace. We thought that the shovelling routine was over for the winter season, and how wrong we were. Of course, unexpected as it is, this is still a reflection of the contrariness of the environment in the Ottawa Valley.

Two days earlier chickadees and a slate-back junco were disporting themselves through the branches of our ornamental trees in the backyard, and a brilliant scarlet cardinal settled a little further beyond to sweeten the spring air with its exquisite song of spring jubilation. This morning, while snow transformed the environment, a lone junco settled on the branches of a climbing rose, no doubt confused and mourning expectations lost.

When I was young I had become accustomed to hearing the weary phrase that weather conditions from northern Canada were disrupting the orderly weather patterns in the United States, bringing to them cold and misery. That appears to have changed; what's occurred with the atmospheric conditions to make it now more common that diverse disruptive weather conditions from the U.S. northwest blows into Canada, bringing us discomfort?

Little Riley, our toy poodle, was certainly discomfited; he had grown accustomed to the snow and ice having melted, revealing the green, the warming soil, and the newly empowered warmth of the sun. This change is disconcerting for us all, but, thankfully, episodic and fleeting. And a right royal pain in the arse, for as long as it lasts.