A week later, to the day, we took another drive along the Western Parkway to downtown Ottawa and from there on to the Eastern Parkway to reach our final destination. Plenty to see along the way, if the observer is a lover of nature.

The contrast between the natural precincts administered by the National Capital Commission in honour of the beloved greenspace of this capital city, maintained as a treasure on behalf of the nation and for, dare we hope, posterity -- and the crumbling old stone buildings many of which are currently undergoing extensive renovations to ensure their continued longevity, provide a fascinating contrast in aesthetics.

No one could conceivably be bored during that pilgrimage, and nor was I, finding more than ample subjects for photographing what took my admiring fancy.

When night left on its silent journey early this morning, instead of a clear sky with a brightly illuminating sun triumphing as might have been expected after a night of winking stars on full awesome display, there was a hugely enveloping, densely opaque yet oddly evanescent ice fog to meet our eyes. That fog of icy moisture left in its wake all growing things slathered in a coating of hoar frost, and if there is any heavenly artist more skilled in transforming a natural environment from one of beauty to one of transcendent loveliness, I've yet to hear of it.

As a result of the early and lingering extremely cold temperatures we've been groaning under, the Ottawa River has begun to freeze over. In those areas where ice has not yet gripped the waters, under the heavily-laden sky the river looked thunderously black and roiled. A more dramatic sight would be hard to imagine. This day's unfolding of scenery from one area to another provided an overload of aesthetic pleasure; no need to exercise one's imagination.

Nature isn't terribly impressed with the human-designed calendar of the seasons, that much is abundantly clear. If Nature decides to instruct high winds and cold to settle in over a landscape, impulsively throwing in high moisture levels, gifting those below with a ferociously winter-like atmosphere which is, after all, native to the northern geography it is her prerogative to do so. Everything, in fact, in the natural world is the prerogative of Nature.

So it shouldn't nor would it have, surprised people who have always lived in the environment to awaken one morning to find themselves deep in a cold snap and deeper still in accumulated snow. We've seen this happen even in a more clement climate like that of Tennessee, where we enjoyed a mild, lovely day of light-jacket hiking in the woods, then awoke the following morning to find the entire landscape in the grip of an upended giant snow bucket which the sky had been transformed into. Impossible to walk without skies or snowshoes in that depth of snow, we soon discovered. Discovering also that main highways out of the area had been temporarily closed down.

So here in Ottawa in the cold-and-snow belt, we woke to a similar situation, but since we're more than accustomed to these events, it wasn't much of a problem to adjust. Mind, we'd been forewarned by Environment Canada and suddenly-aware drivers were frantically attempting to persuade over-booked and over-worked auto shops to drop everything else they were doing and tend to their personal pleas to put winter ice tires on their vehicles.

As for us, we ventured out the day after the big storm that left the first of the downy coverlets over our landscape to the tune of 25 cm, which a wicked wind that lopped off the woodlands' pine branches in the ravine, to enjoy a day of clear skies, struggling sun-warmth, little wind, and a high that day of minus-8-degrees Celsius. There were others out and about, enjoying the beauty of the day. Including a minuscule kinglet flitting in the trees, doubtless in the unseen company of chickadees.

We came across a whippet, wearing a blue coat, walking a young man on snowshoes. The ravine landscape was ravishing in its white beauty, the creek in the process of freezing over. No squirrels to be seen whatever, in stark contrast to the days previous when the woods ran thick with them, all imploring us to part with the peanuts we carry.

 Despite their visual absence, we knew they'd be out looking for treats, so we struggled, with double-mitted hands, to disperse them in the usual places.

Ottawa has two perfectly serviceable institutes of higher learning. Granted, their reputation is not as high as other academic institutions in the country. And she is not enamoured of attending university in Ottawa, in any event. Her mother had gone to University of Ottawa, as had one of her uncles. Her mother had been anything but impressed with the system she had been exposed to. And she changed courses, to attend Algonquin College instead, for a certificate in interior design. As for her uncle, after his first year at University of Ottawa, he switched to the University of Toronto to achieve his B.A. And he later received his Master's degree at University of Guelph, his doctorate in science from University of British Columbia. As for her older uncle, his entire academic education was at University of Toronto, including music and medieval history. And he is now involved in documenting the history of astronomy.

She is fascinated by the prospect of attending university in Toronto. That, it seems, is her mecca for attaining the highest degree of academic standing, to attend Osgoode Law School. Her focus on attaining a law degree is not new, it has been an ambition of very long standing. She is only 17 years old now, and it was when she was much, much younger, even before the onset of her teen years, that she had designed her future as a lawyer. A trial lawyer; she is interested in criminal law.

She'll graduate high school in the spring. But she and a group of her girlfriends -- high academic achievers all -- decided to make early application to the universities of their choice. All of her friends applied to small universities, the very thought of which seemed absurd to her. None of them, in any event, had law programs. She decided to apply to York, University of Toronto, Dalhousie, Simon Fraser and University of British Columbia. She sent applications to the first four. And has been on tenterhooks of expectation, and dismaying fear ever since.

The acknowledgements of her applications from the universities come automatically, but with each one her heart lurched, only to fall back again into disappointment, for none of them came with an automatic acceptance. Awaiting news in a state of agitated suspense is not only a teen emotion, but it is hugely enhanced, no doubt, but a teen's wish to go out into the beckoning, great wide world of opportunity and prove their mettle.

Two weeks after she submitted her applications she heard back from Dalhousie with an acceptance. She is conflicted about this. On the one hand, it is validation, on the other it doesn't represent her first choice, although she acknowledges that its law school is highly thought of, and graduates have an excellent change of being hired, another of her concerns. (Her mother's uncle, as it happens, is a professor of environmental science at Dalhousie.)

It fits some of her criteria, one odd one of which is aesthetic; the university dates in origin back two hundred years, its architecture is likely Romanesque, the 'ancient' look of the architecture and the stonework appeal hugely to her romantic sense. That the university enjoys high esteem is hugely in its favour; as is the fact that it offers the minor that she has targeted. It's relatively far from home, and apart from her love of her family, the geography that represents home is not one that has great appeal to her.

Toronto, on the other hand, does. Her uncle's advice is that a smaller university will result in more personal interaction, attention, and likely satisfaction. She rejects this, even though she knows from her extensive research that students have chosen a small northern Ontario university as representative of the most appreciated environment its former alumni selected.

The near future stretches before her, limited only by matters beyond her control, in the hands of Dame Fortune. Her passion to achieve a degree in her chosen profession and her search for excellence, her interest in the administration of justice has the potential to carry her forward in momentum toward life satisfaction.

On the positive side, he's been doing weight-lifting exercises routinely for the past two years. On the negative side, he's had to cope with working around the fact that two months ago he suffered an accident, seriously slicing two important digits of his left hand; index finger and thumb. They required extensive stitching, and have been gradually on the mend. Despite which he has not avoided any of his usual activities, ranging from driving long distances, to working on new stained glass windows. The two fingers are still bandaged, and he does that himself as well, refreshing the dressings every two days.

The incessant pain is now an ache and may or may not disappear in time. None of which stops him from doing much, other than he had put off changing the tires in the car from all-weather to ice tires. Yesterday's snowstorm warning gave him little option but to attack the job. And that's what he did, hauling the ice tires up from the basement where he stores them over the summer months, changing the tires on the car, then hauling downstairs to the basement the all-weather tires.

The snow did come down overnight, greeting us this morning with more snow falling. Looking out the bedroom windows last night, in the middle of the night, the stained glass windows glowed with the reflected light of the snow crystals falling, a warm glow of transcendentally ephemeral light, exceedingly beautiful and comforting.

He had not been able to start up the snow-thrower when he tried yesterday earlier in the day. He had filled up a gasoline container when we were out and about, then filled the snow-thrower, still no action. This morning, he cleaned the spark plugs, but they weren't dirty. The gas just wasn't getting up through the gas lines, so he remedied that through sustained manual suction, and was able to clear out the driveway. In the early morning hours he had been up shovelling the deck and the walkways below free of snow, for our little dog's use.

All in a day's work for a homeowner in this frozen northern country.

Modern technology is truly astounding in the manner in which it can put us in touch with one another. An old girlfriend whose friendship dated from around the time I met the boy who would become my husband, is now in touch with me though we haven't seen one another for well over fifty years. Our last close contact must have been when we were in our early 20s.

A few years ago, my sister became friendly with a woman she met when she and her husband were out dancing at a local social club in Toronto. Conversation led to the revelation that my sister's new acquaintance was one of my old teen-age girlfriends. Although my sister doesn't use a computer, our mutual friend does and I relayed to my sister my email address. From then it took no time to re-establish contact.

Hers has been a life fraught with quite a bit of personal stress and mine has been, relatively speaking, anything but. We relived old days briefly, and she put me in touch with a few of our other teen-age mutual friends from 'way back when. Two of whom I had been quite close with, but lost contact when my husband and I began raising our family and moved out of the city. Nor was their experience in life seamlessly satisfying. All of them were, regardless fairly optimistic, and all had grandchildren out of their marriages. With those latter two a brief, transitory correspondence by mail ensued, then flicked itself out of existence.

My friend who regularly updates her email acquaintances has sent me, over the years we've re-established contact, a number of photographs of a man whom she has been 'dating', and regularly travelling together with in the winter months to Florida, to escape Canada's harsh winter conditions. He's a Holocaust survivor, and 94 years of age, and she seems very happy with their relationship.

Apart from the doors giving primary access and exit to the house, we have countless doors scattered throughout the house, many of which were installed by my husband, transforming the interior of the house from a large open-concept space to one with clearly defined rooms through which one passed traditionally, using doors. When he installed all those doors over a period of time, he chose between doorknobs as pulls for the doors permitting ingress and egress, and also lever-types.

As far as aesthetics go, they come out about even. As far as convenience goes in their use there isn't much difference between them. As utilitarian objects used for a defined purpose they do have their differences; lever-types are identified as being easier to use for the handicapped and the elderly. We are one but not the other, and find little difference in using one over the other.

Except that the lever-types can be a real nuisance. Because of their design, they 'catch' or hook onto things. Like loose clothing, like the electric cords of vacuum cleaners, that kind of thing. More than a nuisance, they can sometimes become dangerous, the potential source of accidents. So as far as I'm concerned, the doorknob-type mechanism affixed to doors is preferred, in my personal experience.

The Vancouver City Council has, in its great wisdom, recently effected legislation in their municipal building code making it mandatory that all new homes, apartments, commercial buildings and public buildings bypass doorknobs and use lever-type door opening-closings. Which seems intrusively absurd. It's easy to understand why their preference is for the levers when considering access for the impaired elderly or the physically handicapped. But including all residential buildings? Overkill.

If home builders prefer the traditional approach to the matter, and most home-owners are comfortable with door-knobs, why not leave well enough alone? To legislate in favour of lever mechanisms in public and commercial buildings, perhaps; the trouble is a municipal council vowing to make itself the 'greenest' city in North America has a tendency to go overboard in its mission zeal.

The atmosphere was so spectacular as we drove along the Eastern Parkway en route to the glass store that I was very glad to have remembered the camera, after castigating myself that I'd neglected to do so when we had embarked earlier in the day into the ravine for our daily ramble. This was, after all, the occasion of the first significant snowfall following hard in the wake of Friday's overwhelming fog conditions casting an opaque grey pall over the landscape, limiting visibility markedly.

Snow fell all day on Saturday in light, incessant curtains of white flakes. The squirrels in the ravine were frantic in their erratic and occasionally very bold forays meant to retrieve the peanuts we were doling out in the usual cache places.

When the more assertive squirrels, intelligent enough to recognize us whether by the fragrance of the peanuts we carried or by some other means like visual identification (same for the family of crows that always follows us through our circuit for the identical purpose), awaited their turn, after rushing purposefully toward us, they rarely miss their catch; those that do, give up looking and appeal to us again for a repeat throw, in the process often discovering the original.

When we finally emerged from our walk, we looked like white-washed ghosts, covered in a thick layer of fine snow particles, our boots clumped with the snow hard-packing into the interstices of their soles. I had given slight thought to memorializing the new winter scene with snow clinging elegantly to bare branches and conifers alike, but had dismissed it; plenty of time for that as the season matures, I felt.

So, on the drive downtown the camera came along. Every part of the landscape covered with snow. Regardless of how often we experience that final transition into visual winter it always takes our breath away. Both because of the exquisite beauty it portrays and because, invariably, it happens when the turning weather becomes icily cold, with wind to penetrate, punctuating our breath, ensuring we are well aware of just how cold it has become.

Along the Ottawa River the clouds seemed darker, lower, more threatening, and that in itself can appear beyond beautiful. It makes the discerning eye feel almost rhapsodic with appreciation. The Parliament buildings on Sussex Drive appeared muffled in the gentle white of the falling snow. In fact, visibility was affected to the degree that the usual scene available looking across the river was muted in shades of notional appearances of the urban landscape known to be there on a clear day.

The atmosphere changed as we drove along, becoming heavily foggy in some places over the river, and then again, as we proceeded, the sun, despite the dense layer of dark clouds began to bully its entitled way through, and we could see its bright outlines, waxing and waning, and finally enough sunlight briefly shone over the river that a bright highway of light appeared on the wind-roiled surface.

The phenomena was brief and evanescent, returning speedily to the dim, dark, yet still lovely atmosphere of moody, fog-hidden landscapes, where geese flew above the river and others sailed happily upon the waves under the forbidding clamp of the sky.

It's been two years since we last saw the little tailless black squirrel whom we named Stumpy and who delighted us no end. For years we had a relationship with Stumpy that we thought of as quite special. He was very small, and probably seemed even smaller than he was because of the absence of a tail, other than a hairy little stump, a residual tail, all that was left of the tail he most certainly had been born with.

We know that sometimes, in the nest, very young squirrels occasionally get their tails caught in a knot making it difficult for them to separate. Just such knots of very young squirrels had occasionally ended up with the Ottawa-Carleton Wildlife Centre when they were still in operation. People coming across them somehow, bringing the little creatures in for the good folk at the Centre to figure out how to separate them.

In Stumpy's case he or some other squirrel might have, in desperation, bitten off his tail to grant him his freedom. He might have been attacked by another animal, leaving him intact and his tail gone forever. In any event, he was small, to us quite adorable. When he hopped away from us he resembled nothing so much as a rabbit. And when he hopped away from us it was generally because he was satisfied with the three-chambered peanut we had given him at any given time.

Any given time would have been an often daily occurrence, since it is daily that we take along peanuts to disperse in the ravine. After years of our acquaintanceship with Stumpy he suddenly one day disappeared, and we mourned his absence. In the two years prior to his disappearance another little squirrel sans tail had appeared. We assumed it was a female and we named her Stumpette. We would never see Stumpy and Stumpette in the same territory; we knew where he tended to hang out and where she did, and they were geographically separate, along our daily circuit in the ravine.

Now, for the past two years only Stumpette has remained. It's not as though she is the only squirrel who impudently accosts us, waiting, stump of tail twirling, for the expected response of a peanut to flash by at her. There are other squirrels with tail intact, grey and black who have, over the years become accustomed to our habit of leaving peanuts for them. They too approach us with expectations that we'll give them peanuts directly rather than ignore them and simply leave the offerings in the usual cache places which they are well familiar with.

Today, because we experienced our first-of-the-season full snowfall with a modest accumulation, the squirrels must have gone into a bit of panic mode. They were everywhere in the ravine, rushing about hither and yon to the usual cache places, with about twenty percent coming right over to us, and our store became exhausted, but thankfully, just as we prepared to exit the ravine, our circuit completed.

He is affected by a strange kind of disorder which I can only sum up as enthusiastic shopitis. I am more often indifferent to shopping, he is dedicated to a certain type of shopping. He looks for sales, bargains, good deals, be it from automotive parts sources or from grocery supermarkets. We both daily look forward to the delivery of the newspapers that we subscribe to. Me, so I can scan the news, and he so that he can consume the advertising flyers. Those colourful shopping enticements that regularly get tucked inside the newspapers.

He retrieves them from their waiting status on our porch, tucked into the double receiving hook he's placed there for that distinct purpose, and carefully separates the wheat from the chaff. The wheat, in my opinion, is the newspapers, the chaff, in his opinion, represent delectable printed candy. He anticipates their arrival just as a child would, entering a candy shop, uncertain in which direction to head first, then deciding to tidily and carefully peruse the offerings, aisle by delicious aisle.

I never look at the advertising flyers, they represent nothing to me but an unwanted accumulation of wasted paper ready to be deposited in the recycling bin. Their presence excites his interest in making a trip to the various places linked to the advertising that happens at any given moment to alert him to the potential of achieving a sales scoop. There's little harm in it, other than the waste involved. And waste makes me wince.

This week he went out and bought no fewer than four 'eternity' scarfs for me and our granddaughter; they were on sale, two for $5. Yesterday he brought home, though he had brought to my attention the advertisement relating to them and I'd shrugged them off, informing him we had more than ample oranges, a dozen of the largest Florida-grown navel oranges I'd ever seen. We both love navel oranges and eat them regularly. Lately I've only been able to buy South African-grown oranges and they simply cannot match the quality and taste of their American counterparts. Last shopping, because they were on sale, I'd bought enough to last us for weeks. I've half left, and now must find room in our crowded refrigerator to accommodate the giant oranges. We will, needless to say, use them in due time.

He also scooped up a piece of cheese weighing a kilogram, because he liked the price ($15) and it was spiced-and-caraway-seed-littered and that intrigued him. It has an interesting taste. The kind of taste you appreciate in very small quantities, so that if you misguidedly purchase such a product, it would be far preferable had you done so in a modest size to sum up your impression without much loss. Now we've got this huge piece of cheese in the refrigerator, aromatic to be sure, but with a type of texture born of the additives that feels unpleasant to the palate.

He could have other vices. Other than informing me casually multiple times weekly that he's just popping out to the bank or somewhere similar, then coming back hauling a cache of foodstuffs he bought at high-priced supermarkets I never shop at, or at bulk food shops, bringing home items that we may or may not use, and eventually discard. But when he returns with his bounty he is invariably so pleased with his venture, it's difficult not to rejoice with him; it represents, after all, the staff of life, as it were.

He is impulsive and driven to excess at times. Like his penchant for breaking into a wide smile whenever our eyes meet throughout the course of a day, any day, any time of day. His cheerfulness and capacity to brighten my day never fails to impress me. Or nuzzling me when I'm busy working in the kitchen. Or asking for a hug, and holding me tight and close. Or kissing me, to remind me how much we mean to one another. After 58 years of marriage you'd think I'd be accustomed to it. I am, and cannot but wonder at my good fortune.

It was on a very cold, snowy winter day last year that we'd first come across the tiny dog. We'd been plodding along over trodden-down snow-packed trails in the ravine when a tiny dark hurricane of motion suddenly accosted us loudly. Barking furiously, skittering about on its four tiny legs, it was outraged at our presence. Close behind was a large young man who called the little Chihuahua to him, and it obeyed instantly, still regarding us with baleful eyes and snarling.

Apologizing, the young man explained the little creature was a rescue, his parents' dog, and they were trying to help it into a mindset of trust of people, but it was tough slogging. The little dog was aptly named: "Taz". He tore through the trails like a literal Tasmanian devil, everywhere at once, alert to the oncoming presence of danger in the persona of a human being. Clear evidence, hard to believe, that the minuscule animal had been a victim of violence.

We've seen the little dog since then on a number of occasions, and most often being walked along with an older man perhaps in his mid- to late-sixties. He's a man who obviously values nature, since despite a physical handicap, he makes an effort to get out with little Taz to exercise them both, when feasible. He's overweight, and walks with the aid of a walking stick, carefully but with determination; his stolid style in stark contrast to the perpetual-motion little dog.

They'd previously had a large, family dog but the Labrador Retriever had grown old and eventually left them. To fill the vacuum in their lives he and his wife agreed to try for another dog. But since the husband, who mostly took care of the dog was now limited by a diagnosis of advanced osteo-arthritis, depending hugely on medication to keep himself ambulatory and capable of functioning, they agreed it would have to be a small dog, this time.

And when they saw an advertisement for little Taz at a nearby humane society, across the border in Quebec, they took instant action to secure him for themselves. And their companionship is the result of that. Taz clearly adores the large gentle giant that is his human companion. He is quick to express his rage over the presence of others presuming to walk the same trials they do, and becomes so absorbed in his sense of outrage that he will follow people, barking furiously at them, while they look back both bemused and amused.

He's becoming familiar with us, though we too are initially treated to a barking session on meeting. But as we stand and talk with the man whom Taz finds comfort with, he allows our presence to ruffle him less and less. Looking for validation constantly at the man whose quick action brought him back to the possibility of a life worth living.

There's our little sun dog. He's a sun-lover beyond parallel. Our other little dog, Button, loved the presence of the sun, as well. She was anxious to be in the sun whenever it shone, and we made every effort to accommodate her, although that was never difficult. Unlike her, little Riley begins to shiver come September, when cooler weather begins to prevail.

We understood quickly enough, when he was still a puppy that he was averse to 'cool', longing for warmth, and particularly the warmth of the sun. Our daughter's Chihuahua is like that, but that can be understood considering where the breed originated. And we've seen pocket-sized dogs running about evidently oblivious to the cold, but not Riley. On the other hand, for a poodle, he has a very light haircoat. So we began, as soon as the shivering symptoms appeared in the fall, to dress him in little sweaters, light ones, then progressively heavier ones as the weather became colder.

When he's taken out for a walk, understandably, a much heavier coat is required, and boots when the weather falls too low below the freezing mark and ice and snow is piled high on the ground. But despite his aversion to cold exposure, if the sun is out he wants to be fully involved, basking himself in its warming rays. If it's extremely cold, and the sun is out, he prefers to be outside with it, in it, enjoying its warmth.

So we accommodate him, putting out protection against wind and the prevailing cold, and he sits in a little bivouac we've placed on the deck for his enjoyment. Left in the house he curls up in his bed and just sleeps unendingly until we take him out for his long daily ravine jaunt. Permitted to go out on the deck, he will be sitting, alert and conscious to every sound he hears, everything that moves, revelling in the sun warming him through the cold-protection layers mounded around him.

I was married by then, age 18, and she, a year younger, had come to work in the same transcription-typing pool where I was employed, and we became friends. Both young, both Jewish girls, working in a pool of largely older women, we had some things in common. Where I was short, dark and compact she was larger, blonde and fully feminine-formed. That was almost sixty years ago.

Her parents, immigrants to Canada from Israel, had a very small children's-wear shop on Eglinton Avenue in Toronto, where we then lived. The family of four, parents and two children -- she had a younger sibling -- lived above the shop.

Her mother had blamed me once when her daughter came home with a formal dress she felt to be too conspicuous for a young woman. We'd gone to a wholesale showroom together and excitedly tried on dresses. I knew what I wanted, and she modelled a few for me, her full, womanly figure showing off each of her choices to distinction. She finally chose a glittering-fabric close-fitting dress with an open back, but to-the-throat front closure with a jaunty self-scarf tied in back at the shoulders.

As a young married couple, we used often to visit with her and her boyfriend, an affable, extrovert with a loud, cheerful voice, at the family apartment. Where we'd chat animatedly, laugh quite a bit, thanks to her boyfriend's turned-on sense of humour, and play card games.

There came a time at the office where we both worked when the typing pool supervisor, an older respected woman who had good relations with all the staff, suffered a horrible personal loss; her husband drowned attempting to save a woman caught in an undertow. And the company for which we worked was looking for her replacement.

I was the second-youngest in a pool of some twenty women, but I was the best typist, the most literate and capable, and though they must have suffered some misgivings at elevating the youngest to supervise a coterie of older women, the choice was made. Suddenly I found that all the friends I had made over the years working there had been transformed into hostile strangers. Everyone resented my new position, and balked at instructions given by me to them on how best to perform their professional duties.

The estrangement from my co-workers was complete when she too joined them in defiance of my supervision. Management attempted to rescue me from the situation, giving me an office of my own, but I felt so demoralized, I just left the company to look for work elsewhere. I had heard from some source that she and her boyfriend whom she'd married had a comfortable life together. I had also heard a decade ago that she hadn't survived a second bout with cancer.

And yesterday, my husband, who often looks at the 'hatch-and-dispatch' columns read a notice of his death. They left behind four children and eight grandchildren. A legacy that will most certainly carry on, populating the planet with offspring of their offspring.

The concept of time is fascinating, and so too are the mechanisms by which we measure the passage of time. Clocks in their various manifestations over the centuries never fail to surprise and gratify the connoisseur of their unimaginable presentations. And collectors of clocks are always on the lookout for various types of clock cases and movements from different areas of the world.

They are decorative objects of great imaginative beauty often, combining semi-precious materials and meticulous craftsmanship along sculpture within their realized presence. And no small amount of ingenuity and inspiration has gone into their making.

They delight us with their sound, and satisfy deep within us the need to connect somehow with a past that struggled, just as we do, to keep pace with time, a commodity that is limitless, but limiting to those aware of its presence and to them anything but without limit.

From time to time, my husband, an inveterate clock collector of long standing, roams about the house, a small box of keys in hand, to wind all the clocks he has gathered over the years to make up his proud inventory.

Time is so scarce, with so much to do continually, that it presents almost as a reprieve if not a reproof to realize that the presence of the clocks is scarcely noted if they're not animated.

So for as long as the winding mechanism permits - anywhere from several days to several weeks - the house resonates with the 19th Century tic and the antique melodious toc of their surrounding presence.

Within the Jewish and indeed the international community there are commemorations of the Holocaust; special days, weeks, months when the news media air and publish stories about Nazi Germany's Final Solution to exterminate an ethnic-cultural-religious group whom they declared to be sub-human. The extent of their mission, the extraordinary lengths to which the Third Reich committed itself in terms of complicating their WWII war effort against Allied forces bent on stopping the Axis bid for world domination, must surely have detracted in sidelining troops, materials, rolling stock and funding for the death camps from Germany's ultimate goal of triumph over the forces of democratic order and human decency.

As a Jew, I have always been aware of the fact that had I been born in Europe, chances are I would never be alive today, to live a long and happy life with my husband, another Jew whose fate would have been like my own. Had our parents never migrated from the little towns of their birth in Poland, Ukraine, Russia to flee incessant pogroms, the threats come alive with intimidation and regional conflict, we and they would never have known freedom and the liberty to make of our lives what we could, and would.

It could be said with a large degree of accuracy that most Jews of our generation, over three-score-years and ten, suffer psyches traumatically twisted by the Holocaust. For people like us, special days of remembrance are not required. Those are events whose purpose is to ensure that others be aware, know the full extent of the horrors that were unleashed on people innocent of any wrong-doing, targeted simply because of who and what haters felt them to be.

European Jewry was destined for obliteration. Six million Jewish lives were destroyed. The elderly, infants, children, men and women alike, mortally gassed, their remnants charred to smoke and bits of biology turned into effluent. Their worldly possessions lived on longer than they did, in the hands of those eager to own them. The world turned its face in shame away from what it had permitted to occur. A time of lunatic madness, an eruption of hatred so vitriolic and violent the well-organized deaths of millions shrugged off in the fog of war.

Political dissenters, homosexuals, gypsies joined the fate of the hapless, vulnerable Jewish population of Europe. Which saw Jews as a distinct and disfavoured, irritating minority among the greater population of decent folk; Jews, with an apocryphal penchant for usury, cunning, and plotting to control world affairs through monopolizing industry, communications, finance, politics. Their comeuppance, as far as the anti-Semites were concerned, was the destruction of their plans through the destruction of their lives. As for the others they were marginalized, despised and destined for a like fate because they dared to counter the ideology of fascism, or they were gays, or Roma, or people with physical or mental disabilities.

The world relented sufficiently, post WWII, to allow a new group of Jewish upstarts and rabble-rousers calling themselves Zionists to proclaim a Jewish state in the stronghold of what had become a Muslim geography, reclaiming part of the territory that was their geographic heritage, cleaving to the biblical city that hosted the most significant artefact of Judaic belief and trust in a higher power over which Islam had plastered its contemptful defiance of Judaic belief with their own sacred totem.

Anti-Semitism that so pervaded society became acknowledged in democratic societies as a blemish on the human spirit, and though it never departed the scene, it was much diminished, as a symbol of brutish inhumanity. And Jews thought they were now free to breathe the fresh air of equality and security. Now, the kind of Anti-Semitism that spawned the Holocaust has returned to Europe, and returned with a burning menace.


(Picture from the Main Commission for the Investigation of Nazi War Crimes, courtesy of USHMM Photo Archives.)

View of the entrance to the main camp of Auschwitz (Auschwitz I). The gate bears the motto "Arbeit Macht Frei" (Work makes one free).

There is little resemblance today to the climate we've encountered the past week. The overnight temperature didn't plunge to freezing. And the day dawned clear and bright. There are light skeins of white clouds here and there, merely decorative against the overall light blue of the sky, like the far-off sails of an armada of little boats floating on a vast blue sea.

And when we dressed to go out for our usual ravine walk, we put on light jackets, not the heavier winter jackets the icy cold wind has forced us to adapt to. No mittens, no ear-muffs, no shivering.

And the bonus is that I was able to manipulate the bag of peanuts we daily take along far less clumsily than when my fingers are covered with cold-banishing wool. Though truth to tell, it was so cold up until a day ago that even with two layers on my hands the icy wind penetrated my digits, freezing their tips throughout our hour-long woodland ramble. The peanuts, however, got properly distributed.

Today when we descended our first long hill into the ravine we were mildly surprised to note that the creek, like yesterday, was still running full with muddy water, very much the way it appears at spring run-off. And that would be because of the days-long rains we experienced, along with wet snow, with the cold intense enough to freeze all that wetness into the newly rock-hard ground. When the weather turned milder starting yesterday, the ground had thawed, releasing all the frozen water, which ran downhill into the creek and began the run-off -- water wide and rushing madly off in the direction of the Ottawa River.

This was also a day of frenetic activity for the ravine's squirrel population, although it's been that way for the past several weeks. Today too, the crows were alerted to our presence and they too followed us intensely. They're as avid to collect the peanuts we leave behind as the squirrels are anxious to claim them and store them away for the winter months when they semi-hibernate.

We've noted that the squirrels simply ignore the presence of the crows. The crows seem to restrain themselves in the presence of squirrels. They stand back as it were, and permit the squirrels first dibs at the peanut caches. They aren't exactly depriving themselves since there is always more than enough to go around. And while we've never seen a crow aggressively competing with a squirrel over peanuts, we have seen crows becoming quite exercised with one another over competition for a single peanut.

As occasionally occurs, a family of crows, obviously resident in the ravine, and obviously familiar with our routine, followed us today throughout out walk. They knew each one of the many places where we deposit peanuts, sometimes flapping along just as we were in the process of filling up crevices in old tree trunks, and sometimes sitting patiently on branches above the very trees where we are wont to leave the peanuts, awaiting our arrival.

In fact, emulating the very activity of the squirrels. Which also anticipate our arrival and scurry from one place to another, to see if any have yet been left, and when they discover an empty cache, many of them scramble hurriedly to confront us on the trails, hesitatingly locking eyes with us and waiting for us to react, very prepared to react themselves as we toss them choice larger, three-chambered peanuts.

I wonder if they can count?

Well, then, that's done. We took little Riley for his regular annual physical. Our veterinarian of choice operating out of his co-owned modern new veterinarian hospital a veritable stone's throw as the car drives from our home, who has looked after his health needs all our little dog's 13 years of life, and before him, our older little companion dog, Button, proclaimed him beautifully healed from his late-September surgery, presenting an altogether different profile from the last time he was examined.

It wasn't he who performed the surgery though doubtless he is capable of removing most lipomas. Instead, a veterinarian who has made his practise of specializing in that kind of surgery, and who travels from area veterinarian clinic to another for that very purpose, and who had operated six years earlier on Riley to remove a baseball-sized lipoma from his toy-breed body, had removed this time around almost two pounds of lipoma (inert, invasive fat deposit) that had invaded his little body and grown spectacularly.

Riley is almost impishly frolicsome at times now, a clear departure from the lethargy that had slowly overtaken him. Apart from his puppyhood though, truth to tell, he has never been an adventuresome or extremely energetic little dog.

He was none too pleased at our visit to the clinic. Even as we drove up to the clinic entrance, sensing where we were, he began trembling and voicing his doubt. But he behaved himself very nicely despite his discomfiture at being there once again, and only emitted a sound that appeared very like a growl when he was inoculated with his three-year rabies vaccine.

Happy he was to be removed from the examining table and ensconced safely in our arms again.

The day following Remembrance Day, with its sobering thoughtfulness of sanctity in the societal obligation to give a scant moment out of a year in which to recall the sacrifices of the country's Armed Forces who fought for the cause of justness and liberty, leaving to us the legacy of that valiant outcome to live in peace and security, people have turned to decorating their homes for Christmas. A far lighter event, one that marks a joyous occasion for so many who subscribe to the Christian tradition of celebrating the birth of Christ.

Since it is such a colourful event, occasioning good cheer and happiness where people see the need to actually jubilantly greet others and to exchange gifts with loved ones, the holiday season known as Christmas has become a traditional time to share the festivities of brilliant colour exemplified in bright, blinking lights illuminating dark winter nights, good fellowship, and a general aura of light-heartedness has captured the imagination of non-Christians as well.

Our neighbours have begun putting up strings of colourful light bulbs, across the fronts of their roofs, around the trees, both coniferous and deciduous planted on their lawns, and anywhere else they feel like making a statement relating to their celebration of the occasion. They embark on these decorative spurts of activity during the month of November, hoping for a relatively mild day to allow them to do these things with some degree of comfort.

But the lights don't go on nor do the lawn ornaments light up until November has angled through the turnstile of seasons to December. Come December, most people switch on their goodwill exuberance along with their intention to outdo one another in street displays of singing carolers, deer placed on lawns, Santa Claus figures and creches, suitably lit for proper exhibition. Nights become sparkling bursts of illuminated joy.

There are some people, like our next-door neighbours who embrace full-on any opportunities to decorate and ornament the outdoors of their property, both front and back. These neighbours have an in-ground pool like many others; unlike many others they place half-life-size palm trees around their pool, lighting them up at night, though they never use the pool during the night hours. In November the palm trees are moved to the front of the house.

Along with Santa figures and sleighs, and reindeer, and puffy comic characters in Christmas dress. And the lights that they festoon their home exterior with go on the night following Remembrance Day, November 11. The front is lit, the back is lit. The interior is also lit with a display of an artificial Christmas tree laden with bright, fetching ornaments and blinking lights.

In terms of a domestic rabbit who has always been kept in a home interior's life-span, she has had a fairly long one. She is over ten years of age. She has been kept in an enclosure all her life with another rabbit whose presence she was patiently taught to be receptive toward.

Her caretaker constructed a multi-level living arrangement for the two little rabbits. They seemed to enjoy one another's company and lived well together. They would be permitted, from time to time, to wander about the room in which their enclosure was located, sometimes for hours at a time. And they had plenty of company for there were other animals around and about, quite a few dogs and several cats. The other animals rarely took notice of the little rabbits. It was the quintessential peaceable kingdom.

Time passes. The little rabbit has passed its tenth year. During the last few months it has sometimes had to be encouraged to eat. It was struggling occasionally, to get up and about, and stopped hopping up to the top stories of the enclosure. She is a fluffy little creature, her name is Katie and her presence is taken for granted by the humans who live in that house. They have always appreciated her responsiveness and cannot imagine a time when she isn't present in their lives.

Katie has been getting progressively weaker in the last several weeks. And the weaker she has become, struggling to raise herself from the more commonly prone position she has succumbed to, the more eager she has become to eat. Seeing her eat so ravenously has been an encouraging sign. But her growing feebleness and the inevitability of her departure mitigate against her brief rallying being mistaken for recovery.

Although the enclosure that has been home to her for the past ten years is cleaned on a daily basis, it was necessary two days ago to give Katie a gentle, warm bath, to remove from her still-fluffy fur and her wasted body the evidence of her inability to perform her normal evacuations the way a robust healthy rabbit would do.

When the daughter of the family left to catch her 7:00 a.m. school bus, Katie was attempting to rise. When the mother of the family went down to look at her brood a little later in the early morning, it was clear that Katie simply could not muster the energy that had escaped her, to ever rise again. She was gently lifted and placed in a basket, scarcely breathing.

There she lies, unmoving, covered with a little blanket, lying comfortably in a fluffy towel, struggling to maintain life. She is still breathing, barely.

It sounded quite dreadful and we felt truly badly for the man who was so obviously upset, but we felt far worse thinking about the plight of his little dog. This was a man whom we'd seen occasionally during our ravine rambles, yet another one of many casual ravine acquaintances who make use of the wooded ravine that runs through a neighbourhood suburb of Ottawa. He was walking a single dog, whereas he usually walks a pair. Two black-and-white border collies, a male and a female. On this occasion the smaller of the two, a female, was missing. And he was quick to tell us why.

His wife had earlier in the day taken both their dogs for a ravine walk. The dogs, as usual, race about and enjoy themselves in that freedom setting that all animals adore. The next thing she knew, there was her dog, shorn of part of its tail, bleeding profusely. She rushed home with it and its companion and she and her husband, desperately attempting to staunch the flow of blood, rushed the little dog to the closest veterinarian hospital.

The little dog hadn't yelped, hadn't issued so much as a whimper all the time they were attending to it while they drove it to the veterinarian, nor did it afterward. Dogs are like that, many handle pain and discomfort far better than humans do. They were convinced that it had somehow, in the underbrush and out of sight of its human companion, run into some kind of malevolently vicious carnivorous animal on a hunting spree; it was very early morning and at dawn and dusk coyotes have been spotted in the area.

But the damage had been done to the dog's tail; in other words as it was running away, so how likely, my husband reasoned, was it that another animal would be involved? More likely, he said as we discussed it afterward, was that the little dog had rushed heedless into a place that might have been dangerous to its well-being, too closely confined in the underbrush, resulting in its tail getting stuck and pulled as it rushed on, likely heeding its human companion's urgent call to return.

The fellow had explained to us just how traumatizing it had been for the companion of the injured border collie, to have to leave its beloved buddy behind at the veterinarian hospital for treatment and further scrutiny to determine the extent of the damage it had sustained. The male border collie was puzzled and upset at the absence of its sibling, and the two owners were at a loss to explain what had occurred, and worried about the final outcome for their pet.

Today, as we rounded a part of one of the trails that gives onto a straight-and-narrow portion, we saw ahead two border collies, both of which stopped in the distance and awaited our advance before themselves finally deciding it was safe for them to proceed, and then they sped rorward and gambolled happily about us. Well before that had happened my husband recognized the pair. The smaller of the two had a short tail, the end of which was tightly wrapped for about six inches in length.

When their owner finally caught up he informed us that today was the last day for the little dog's prescription drug protocol. Which had made her constantly drowsy. But now she had recovered fully and was bursting with energy and enthusiasm, clear enough to see in the frenzy of motion that she and her companion treated us to, running about everywhere for pure joy of release.

He told us that his wife had returned to the area where the accident had occurred. She had gone into the space where she felt the little dog had last been and rummaging about in the mass of shrubs and branches, now more withered and leafless allowing greater access, she discovered a crooked low-lying set of branches and between them lay what was left of that portion of her little dog's tail that had been caught and torn away.

Ottawa. Remembrance Day 11-11-11-13