Now, wasn't that the sight, coming down for breakfast yesterday; two greys and a black squirrel busy munching away at the offerings on the porch, while the atmosphere swirled in white clumps of starry snow. Tomorrow introduces April, and of course spring has had the jump on April by over a week. But spring has been shy this year and continues its modest-to-irrelevant appearance in the Ottawa Valley, and one suspects, far further afield as well.

Something about Demeter's anguish over Persephone, a matter that should have been resolved aeons ago, and presumably was, but the incessant bickering with the dark forces of the underworld continue unabated, most obviously.

Still, the beauty-quotient cannot possibly be discounted. Fresh-fallen snow on the landscape is almost indescribably lovely. Indescribable also is the irritation-quotient of folks awaiting winter's graceful disappearance. Winter's swan song is not, however, noted for grace; by this time of year when winter is being unceremoniously shoved out the door of the environment for the awaited entrance of spring, winter is usually curmudgeonly and bitter.

Despite which, yesterday's hour-and-a-half ramble in our ravined woods was quite, quite lovely. Lovely to amble about in there without freezing, finally, even if we're trudging through a buildup of newfallen snow sucking each booted footstep into sludge before finally releasing it with a bit of a !slurp! and a struggle to continue ambulation.

No problem if you're a six-month-old alert and mind-boggingly energetic, excruciatingly happy yellow Labrador, viewing everyone she comes across as a potential playmate eager to roll about in the lofty new puffs of the snowbanks that represent nature's playground for its creatures. Little (for her breed) Nugget was ecstatic in her greeting when she came across us signalling to her happy brain; look, new friends! although Riley thought otherwise. We watched, ourselves entranced in the renewal of life she represented, as she buried herself deep in snow, finding a handy branch to nibble on, out of her mind with happiness.

And later, coming across Munchkin, reunited with her humans who had just returned from a three-month visit with daughter and baby granddaughter in Australia. Although Munchkin is a stubby-legged, long-haired Dashchund, her tender age also propels those sturdy little legs over the landscape in frantic (unsuccessful) search-and-destroy missions whenever she spots movement from the woodlands' squirrel contingent.

There have been dark, concerning rumblings of a truly troubling character circulating quietly and ominously of late. No one is certain where these rumours have arisen from, but obviously from some knowledgeable source. Unsubstantiated, needless to say, by authority, but taken as given among those whose familiarity with such events cannot be denied.

The gist of which, is, in a nutshell, our most famous, favourite, welcomed and yearned for season has been abducted, taken to some place one can only imagine, being held scandalously for ransom or worse, being threatened; heaven knows what the details may be. Detained in the best of all possible scenarios, temporarily -- briefly, we can only hope. But if the worst-case scenario develops as some darkly hint at, we could be left without a spring succession to winter.

It's clear something is amiss. It's not just anxious gardeners, nature-lovers or merely the vast hordes of people exhausted from an extraordinarily long, frigid, snow-icy winter, not at all. Take for example the St.Lawrence Seaway, now in its 56th season opening - delayed due to ice buildup and slow melt. Harsh winter weather this year we are informed, has led to the latest opening in decades. So commerce too is affected; what's going on here?

In this Jan. 9, 2014 photo provided by the U.S. Coast Guard a convoy of Great Lakes cargo ships line up to follow an icebreaker on the St. Marys River, which links Lakes Superior and Huron. As of Feb. 13, 88 per cent of the Great Lakes surface was frozen, according to the federal government’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory in Ann Arbor.  Photograph by: Lt. David Lieberman , AP

Two days ago the temperature had finally relented and became mild enough to gift us rain. A day before we'd had snow. That, we thought, was progress. And yesterday, absolutely balmy weather, albeit overcast and a tad on the windy side ensuring that winter-bite was still prevalent. Still, we had hope.

This morning, we woke to heavy clusters of determinedly falling snow. And it was clear it had been snowing for some time, since there was quite a thick build-up. We saw forlorn-looking chickadees and juncos at the bird feeder, and overheard a clutch of squirrels nattering about their belief that a malevolent plot was afoot, detaining spring and encouraging winter to overstay its welcome on a more or less permanent basis. Is that fair?

We're in calendar spring, and now approaching April, it's hard to believe, since winter surrounds us everywhere we look; it envelopes us with its icy fingers reaching deep into our winter clothing, and mean winds whip snow at us unrelentingly. On Thursday, our quite cold ravine walk gifted us with large swirling snowflakes. Yesterday nature had changed her mind enough to transform snow into rain, and it was in a steady drizzle that we set off for our daily ravine ramble. We were glad to be out regardless of the rain that picked up noticeably as we neared the conclusion of our circuit. Appreciating that milder temperature that day allowed for rain, though we'd prefer snow.

And then we were entertained as well, not only by the changing landscape and the woodland denizens, but by the happenstance of coming across two sets of trail familiars. One, a young woman whose mother usually walks her elderly dog, and this time she was walking her mother's dog and her own, a rambunctious young dog she and her husband had named Lucy, and whom they occasionally refer to as Lucifer reflective of her manic antics.

Lucy, like the older dog, was permitted to run free while in the ravine, dragging her leash. She always stayed on the trail, assured her owner, so the leash wouldn't really be a problem, getting caught. Large as she is, Lucy is charmingly friendly, anxious to ensure that everyone she meets becomes her admiring friend. It's not a difficult achievement to respond in kind to such overt sweetness. Although Riley always responds with a snarl as though to say 'keep your distance, bud', Lucy appealed to his better instincts, not knowing in her innocence, he had none.

And then, along came Taz, whose hostility to other dogs is manifested well in advance of sighting the tiny creature, by the issuance of high-pitched barks informing all other dogs and humans as well that it is their duty to keep a respectful distance from the little Chihuahua. Taz is a rescue dog who idolizes the man who brought him into his home and taught him a modicum of trust: all others must keep their distance.

Lucy was intrigued by Taz, so small a creature, yet obviously canine. She wanted to play and crouched appealingly before him, but he was having none of it. He leapt effortlessly in a pirouette to distance himself and kept us the fusillade of sharp, warning barks. And finally, Taz scored large when Lucy and Jack were taken by leash down the hill upon whose top we all stood. He had prevailed; his courage and steadfastness had banished the two large dogs from the prominence he considered his own.

Taz, the conqueror of all he surveys. Unless Riley has anything to say about it.

In a society with a throwaway mentality, with the average means to readily replace objects that have disappeared, or broken, it's easy enough to succumb to the feeling of futility trying to find something you've just seen sink into a mountain of snow. Say, something like a small, black, round object resembling a puck. Oh, the owners of Corona the golden retriever/black Labrador mix realized -- it is a puck!

And they tossed it back into the snowpack when Corona happily brought it to them. But Corona kept bringing them on, and Isabelle and Bruce decided, why then, they would collect the tennis balls and hockey pucks that Corona kept digging up. How many? 762 and counting.

The couple regularly walk with their pet around the rink at Combermere Park in Ottawa. Each time they're there with Corona, he indulges in his favourite sport time activity. Digging ferociously, feverishly, and uncovering treasured objects which he then trots back to his human companions. What fun, what unalloyed fun! A romp, a digging-fury and those rewards to conclude the treasure-hunt.

"We've been debating what to do. I would love to do something in the community, to help give back and sell the pucks so we can donate to some charities of our choice", Bruce explained. Isabelle said she'd like to support the Tao Program, Gloucester Recreational Development Organization, Centre for Treatment of Sexual Abuse & Childhood trauma and Walk With Me Canada Victim Services. So there's no end of charitable groups that could take advantage of any funds raised.

Corona, it seems, really outdoes himself in the most spectacular manner through his very special talents. "He likes to have fun so we take him to the park, no matter what the season, and he likes to dig up pucks that have fallen into the snowbanks near the rink or tennis balls that are hidden."

On our own ravine rambles in our part of the city, we've come across countless 'lost' tennis balls over the years, brought there by companion pets unwilling to part with their favourite toys even for a walk. Then forgetting about the ball while they're cavorting in the woods, and eventually returning home, crestfallen that their precious ball has been lost. So it isn't only people, young and old, who lose such play objects, but dogs as well...!

We've been abandoned by Mother Nature to a bad-tempered old-man Winter who has overstayed his welcome, and just refuses to budge. The unrelenting cold that has clamped us into perpetual frost-bite mode, and the incessant snowfall events have transformed our landscape into a facsimile of an ill-kept refrigerator afflicted with a build-up of frost ice. And although there remains a certain beauty in all of that, it does become tedious when there's no end to it.

Mostly because we're tired of being cold, tired of the unrelieved monochromatic landscape, yearning for the sight of the first spring flowers to pop out of the frost-released earth, and we're certainly fed up with the non-stop (or so it seems) shovelling required after each of those snowfalls.

On the other hand, if that's all we have to grouse about we're in pretty good shape. Consider the alternatives; living elsewhere, for example, than in North America. Although Africa may be warm, its constant clan and religious strife isn't exactly appealing; nor, for that matter is the Middle East, South-East Asia or eastern Europe. So as we were saying about the snow and cold; don't mind us for complaining, we love it.

We especially love those frigid days when the sun is sailing brightly in a clear, blue sky and the wind is hushed to a reasonable extent, and the landscape is breathtaking in the scope of its beauty. What, then, are we complaining about?

On yesterday's trail ramble in our ravine just up the street, we came across two 50ish women walking two dogs. The dogs were female too, and both were just short of a year in age. The women walked, carefully in the snow that tends to be slippery in places where it turns to ice, and the dogs were romping about delighted to be able to boisterously express their happiness to be out and about without leashes and without constant commands constraining their enthusiasm.

I suggested to the women that they'd find negotiating the trails far easier with a pair of crampon sets to pull over their boots. The smaller of the two stopped, smiled and said she had a pair, at home, didn't think to use them. I peered a little closer at that portion of her face that was visible; the lower part covered by a scarf. Recognition hit; I had wondered from time to time what had become of a woman we'd made acquaintance with some years back through coming across her occasionally in the ravine.

"Oh", she responded, to my query, "you're the ones who gave me those crampons", and indeed we had, years back when we'd seen her struggling up an icy incline. We'd invited her to come along home with us because we had an extra pair. Now, she informed us that she'd lost the dog she had back then, a golden retriever; to age and ill health. The little black Labrador mix we saw before her was its replacement.

And the small-for-its-breed Malamute was her companion's pet. I hadn't forgotten her face, and recalled her features even though I wasn't able to see her entirely. A pretty woman with blond hair, she reminded me of the British actress of an era gone by, Julie Christie; I told her how good she looked; young and fresh and engaged. The last time we'd seen her she had looked overwhelmed and exhausted, holding down two jobs trying to make ends meet.

The dogs' antics were mesmerizing. They were friends, just as the two women were friends. The Malamute was hugely competitive, the little Lab more hesitant, but still prepared to play. When the Malamute took possession of a stick the Lab was chewing, the chase was on. Back and forth, one dashing after the other.

The Lab retook the stick, and the Malamute leaped onto the Lab, and they tussled in the snow, the Malamute, larger slightly, muffling the Lab into the snow, splayed out and desperately attempting to retain her stick.

When the Malamute once again prevailed and took the stick, the Lab looked appealingly at us, as though to sigh in resignation over the unfairness of life when a friend turned into a challenging bully, and although they were both having a rip-roaring good time, a little melancholy thrust itself into the scenario when the Malamute settled down in triumph to chew at the stick and the Lab seemed somewhat disconsolate.

Ours is a veritable house of glass. We wouldn't want anyone throwing stones in the interior of this house, though we used to throw a ball around constantly at the anxious behest of our little dog Button who was transfixed by her ball challenging her to arrest it in motion, which she often did, with great skill. Throwing the ball about never occasioned any damage in our house of glass, though it did horrify my brother who witnessed our casual approach to living with all that glass.

He's an amateur ornithologist, an avoid bird-watcher. He's gone to great lengths to amass a diary of bird-sighting events, from travelling to the Florida Everglades to the Arctic and to Indonesia, among other destinations. His fascination comes naturally enough to him, since he's also a biologist. He appreciates the stained glass windows that my husband designs and translates into colourful glass panels.

The latest of which are close to completion, representing his self-assigned project for this past winter. He starts out by struggling to decide what he wants to feature in the spaces he's designed and built a wood infrastructure to contain. If it's birds or wildlife he consults the expertise of people like Lansdowne or Glenn Oates for inspiration and guidance in the formation of his own drawings that will form the basis for what will become a stained glass window. And then he considers the glass types and colours to be used.

Finally, setting about the task to draw a suitable cartoon, and if it's acceptable, to be drawn in the size that reflects the requirements of the panel. Finally, the paper pieces are cut out, numbered, and used as cutting guides for the selected glass. And eventually, another glass panel appears somewhere in our house. Overlaying the windows themselves, or contained within scaffolding erected to nestle them.

Of the four panels he has latterly designed, three have been completed over the winter months and now sit between our kitchen and our breakfast room, to further brighten our living environment. One left to go to complete the quartet. We have a red fox, a green heron and a loon.

It's been quite a while since we've come across foxes in the ravine, but they were once a fairly common sight, unfazed by our presence. The heron and loon we'd commonly see while canoeing with our children the many summers we spent leisurely enjoying nature in the Gatineau Hills, a short drive from our home.

Many years ago when our children were very young my husband had built a neat, small shed in the backyard of the first house we owned. He outfitted the interior like a small barn, and in it, and in a small run he built alongside the shed, entirely enclosed by wire fencing, he kept small, fancy chickens, and pigeons. We also had a few rabbits, and in another enclosure at the opposite end of the backyard, we kept a duck.

We had one little Dutch rabbit that we kept in the house. We brought him into the house as a tiny, barely-weaned house-pet. He was never confined to a cage, and eventually became toilet-trained. And, being a very small wild creature he was never completely domesticated in the sense that given the opportunity he would chew and scratch and create quite a bit of damage. We named him Benji and he acquired little habits that we became very fond of.

We'd never think of having a rabbit in the house now, let alone one or two caged. But we do know that there are wild rabbits around where we live, they venture into backyards and some of them live quietly in secure places in some backyards. Our proximity to a large wooded ravine accounts for their presence, no doubt. On the occasion when we glimpse their presence, we're immensely pleased. Since we've put seeds and nuts out for the overwintering birds and squirrels, we've seen at least one little fellow come around regularly.

This has been an inordinately trying winter for wildlife. Nature has been reluctant to allow spring to enter the landscape, bidding winter to linger a while yet. She's unconcerned about the effect that has on her animal creatures, but we're thoroughly fed up with winter this year, and nature is no longer for the moment in our good graces.

Last night when we went up to bed we tarried as usual to see if anyone was around at our feeders and there was the rabbit, munching away. We take pains to approach carefully so that if he or anyone else is at the feeder we won't frighten them. During the day when Riley looks out the door and sees small creatures gathering to eat, he'll bark his fool head off, but they've become accustomed to him and simply ignore him, confident that he poses no threat.

One wonders, how do they know that something solidly dependable separates the potential threat of a larger animal violently diverting them from their comfort at the feeding station?

This morning, when I came down for breakfast, there was the rabbit again, munching contentedly, but warily as rabbits in the wild in urban areas are wont to do. And there too was a red squirrel, neither taking account of the other as representing a disturbance to their comfort levels.

On Friday while doing the week's grocery shopping at the supermarket I frequent, I watched at the dairy counter while another shopper pried off the top of a yogurt container. Noticing my curiosity, she smiled apologetically and explained that the week before she had bought the same brand and discovered when she took the top off the container that the inner security seal had been tampered with. She wanted to make certain the same thing wouldn't occur again, and was taking precautionary measures to avoid bringing home a food item that might have been contaminated.

The week before, I had mentioned to the young cashier at the check-out that the two melons she was putting through the cash were actually melons and not spaghetti squash. The melons being half the price of the squash, I wasn't eager to be over-charged yet again, as happened on two previous occasions. It's a downright pain to return cash register slips for reimbursement.

She turned to me in surprise and said she always puts those items through the scanner to ensure they're correctly identified by the seals slapped on them; they're instructed to do so, she said. I explained that some of her colleagues might not be as aware as she, and perhaps feeling the strain of time-pressure when they're busy just swiftly eyeball the item and input it as they identify it, and wrongly. She smiled, repeated they're not supposed to do that, and she would never think of it. And I believe her.

But, even though I had brought this ongoing problem to the attention of the store's manager, suggesting he might want to remind his cashiers to practise due diligence in identifying produce, to identify a canary melon for what it is, not a squash, and he agreed it might be time to refresh memories, this week I found, on going through the cash receipt that the same thing had happened again. The mature cashiers would never make such an error. But I love the bright smiling faces and eagerness of the young girls who appear to have taken their place.

I was less than pleased yesterday, when I opened the plastic clam containing the cocktail tomatoes that I tend to favour for salads, to discover that the tomatoes were in a state of decomposition. I couldn't believe it; as usual I had examined the tomatoes closely, peering at the fruit from top and from the bottom through the plastic. Henceforth, I'll take the time and trouble to do as the woman with the yogurt had done; I'll open the clamshell and look more carefully at what's inside.

These are the little irritations that life throws at us.

Last night we watched a film titled Ajami. It took place in the Middle East, a film by Scandar Copti and Yaron Shani, nominated in the best foreign language film category for the Academy Awards a few years back. The film was a gripping look at life in the West Bank and in Israel. For the Palestinians it sketched a background of tribal culture and violence, where hard-working Palestinians are drawn into danger by those among them working at extortion and threats to survival, of outward courtesy through traditional Muslim greetings of kind regard overlaying the honour code of retribution by killings of those who are seen to have outraged the tribe by seeking to protect themselves from predation by shooting the predator, thereby bringing down upon themselves the violent, vengeful wrath of the offended tribe.

On the Israeli side, it was the brutalization of civil behaviour by the incessant need to survive a hostile atmosphere of being surrounded by a threatening, violent population whose hatred for the perceived intrusive presence of a dominating power comprised of Jews motivates Palestinians to attack those Jews, exacting their own kind of honour-by-martyrdom for their alleged victimization by their occupying presence. It is always easier to blame the perceived outsider for the misery people live within, rather than those who are responsible for their oppression; namely those who claim to represent their best interests.

Eliciting thoughts of how absurd it is to be irritated by such minor occurrences as rotting fruit and incorrect pricing, when human nature conspires elsewhere to lead to tragic consequences for a large proportion of the human race incapable of rising above their medieval-era preoccupations of honour and survival.

The first full day (yesterday) of official calendar spring was a lovely day. The temperature hovered at the freezing mark, and the sun shone brilliantly in a wonderfully clear sky. Our ambulating trailwalk in the ravine was a leisurely one, fully appreciative of the balmy pleasure of our surroundings.

It would take, we knew, quite a while for the snowpack to melt this year, unlike last year, when we received less snow than usual over the winter months. This year's winter began in November and never quite relented in the severity of the cold and the frequency of snowfalls. By this time last year all the snow had disappeared from the landscape, both from our lawns and gardens, and from the ravined woodland that sits adjacent to our homes.

But the creek was open and running, though layers of thick ice bordered the creek. Soon, we knew, we would see returning ducks and even great blue herons passing through, take a rest in the creek and foraging for food before setting off again for their final destinations where they would spend the spring and summer months.

We came across no one other than a few squirrels rummaging about looking for peanuts. And of course crows, following our progress as we deposited peanuts here and there in the interstices of old pine bark and the crevices in boughs. No one out walking their pets.

Oh, there was one person we had come across. As we were entering the ravine, she was exiting it with a little Shih Tzu on leash. This was Suzanne, our neighbour from far down the street. She and her husband had lost their own Golden Retriever Della, about fifteen years ago. Because Suzanne likes to travel frequently and her husband is elderly and not in the best of health they decided that continued dog ownership was out for them. Instead, Suzanne walks the dogs of neighbours who work during the day, giving their dogs the opportunity to romp in the woods they would not otherwise enjoy.

She had just returned from a trip to Paris and an additional several weeks in Florida. She was effusive in praise of Paris and sourly noncommittal about Florida; a shrug of dismissal.

She asked if we'd heard about Bentley. Those words were enough to inform us that something dreadful had occurred to the little dog we'd known for thirteen years, living right beside where we stood, talking. We'd seen him only the day before, a bundle of energy, lively and inquisitive, a sweet little dog.

Bentley

He had arrived at his home the very same time we received our own little Riley; they were coevals although they never did get along very well. As puppies, Bentley was permitted by his humans to roam about the street on his own, whereas Riley was taught to remain where he was, on our front lawn and to go no further without us. Bentley had once assaulted Riley, pulling him by one of his long flappy ears, on his back, onto the road, as though to say he was teaching him independence and the courage to explore. Riley never forgave him.

Riley

We would often wonder at Bentley's energetic antics, and compare him in that sense to Riley, whose laidback disinterest in expending energy unnecessarily represented quite the contrast.

And Suzanne reported that Bentley had died, of a heart attack yesterday. He will be missed.

Her grandfather mused, sitting at the keyboard yesterday, composing an email message to his only grandchild that took him a very long time to put together and finally send off to her. When she arrived home after school yesterday, she hadn't taken off her jacket before she called us, and that gave him the opportunity to speak with her at some length.

He is imbued with some authority in the matter of where she will be attending university. He wants the best of all possible opportunities for her. And since he's paying her way, apart from the fact that she loves and trusts him, she listens carefully to what he has to say.

Angie, in a group photograph: "Pink" Friday at school

It's a foregone conclusion, she isn't ambivalent necessarily about accepting the offer made to her by the University of Toronto to attend the course she applied for as a precursor to continuing on in the years to come to achieve a law degree. She was struggling within herself to accept that she had prevailed, after all. When we were excited that Dalhousie University had accepted her immediately upon her application, followed by York University's acceptance, we were all for her grabbing the opportunity. She was resolute; she would wait until she heard back from University of Toronto.

It was the premier university and the one she had set her heart on attending. As for us, because she would not give the two universities in Ottawa a second thought, at least attending university in Toronto wouldn't take her as far from us as a Nova Scotia location would. We were prepared, if we had any say in the matter, to encourage her to accept an offer at Simon Fraser University, since her uncle lives in Vancouver, but she had procrastinated and hadn't completed that application, nor the one for University of British Columbia.

She was prepared to leave home, yes, in fact eager to do so, but not as far as British Columbia, though her grandfather urged her to think in terms of it's being only a plane-ride away, and she would be near her uncle, our youngest son.

She wanted me on the telephone line while she went through the process on line of validating the acceptance she'd received from University of Toronto. She gave me a play-by-play role as the audience in the performance. She has links to the university, and that gives her a degree of comfort, though she's not shy of self-confidence. Her aunt by marriage is the chaplain at one of its colleges. One of her great-uncles received his doctorate in botany there over thirty years ago, resulting in his professorship at Dalhousie. Both of her uncles attended University of Toronto.

And now, it's her turn.

The Spring Equinox, the astronomical start of that wonderful season, has arrived, though we traditionally think of March 21 as the official day that ushers spring into our landscape here in the (brrr!) frozen North. We're still frozen. With a tad of spring in the air. On Tuesday, actually, spring was in the air, as it were; the sun full out, sky azure, and crows cawing their spring call. We could, it seemed to us, actually smell and taste spring. It was a lovely day.

And then Wednesday, although a smidgeon warmer on the thermometer at minus-2-degrees than the day previous, it felt as though that curmudgeonly old Winter had just sneered at timid Spring and given her a huge shove backward. It felt frigid, quite miserable, a sharp wind and a moist atmosphere. And then, the reminder that a year ago to the very day the temperature had risen to plus-24-degrees Celsius.

Today, though we'd had snow overnight, by the time dawn arrived the snow had turned to mush. And the icy surfaces we'd been carefully negotiating the previous few days had relented and were no longer icy. We could see that snow was melting off the roof of our house because it was running in the eavestroughs and down the drain.

And, when we entered the ravine the creek had been freed of ice and was swelling with that muddy-brown of melting snow and released detritus. Crows were circling high above, riding a wind that was nowhere near as piercing in the day's plus-2 temperature.

We heard and then saw a Pileated woodpecker knocking the bejesus out of an old poplar that had seen better days. And we noted again, with the same flood of disbelief that anyone could be so utterly nit-brained that a litter of plastic bags filled with dog-excrement had been tossed off the trail and, catching on tree branches, hung there like someone's disgusting idea of forest ornamentation.

The ravine trails are popular in the neighbourhood, and beyond. People drive considerable distances with their pets to take advantage of the natural setting. Why some nitwit would take the trouble to pick up their dog's leavings and then toss the bags (and it must be a deliberate aim) directly onto trees to see them hanging there until somehow nature manages to divest itself of the insult, is beyond us.

It makes us wonder what kind of malevolent attitude is at play here, making a mockery of cleaning up after one's dogs only to burden the landscape with the wretched sarcasm as though displaying some twisted mind's sense of humour.

On the coldest day ever registered for March 17 by Environment Canada, the city celebrated St. Patrick's Day. The Irish community got together to pay homage to its heritage. At Saint Brigid's Centre for the Arts there was a gathering of green-clad, proud Irish-Canadians.

And our local newspaper produced a few photographs of the occasion. Among them was one of two people who had been married for 69 years. To one another, of course.

Julie Oliver/Ottawa Citizen

This is Tedde Baker, 90 years of age, and her husband Art Baker, now 92. Art Baker made his proposal for marriage to his sweetheart Tedde back in 1945 on St. Patrick's Day, when he returned from the Second World War. "I couldn't wait to marry her, but wanted to make sure I came home in one piece before I asked her", he said.

Now that's something; 69 years of marriage. Happy and content with it. Cherishing one another and their memories of those 69 years together, sharing whatever life during that time brought them to.

In a few months' time we'll have reached the lesser milestone of 59 years of marriage ourselves, my husband and me. Somehow, 59 years doesn't quite have the cachet of 69 years. Quite, quite amazing.

Me (left, Angie (right), Button and Riley following, climbing mountains in New Hampshire, 2010

What a day! Though it's cold, the morning was sunny, albeit with an icy wind. Yesterday hit a record low for the day; never before in the recorded history of winter-time temperatures had Ottawa ever experienced such cold. Although when we set out for our walk early this afternoon it felt icily chill given the wind. Once we had attained the forested ravine the wind disappeared and we were impressed with a feeling of spring in the air.

Tomorrow will be a bit warmer than the minus-three degrees we had today. Tomorrow, Environment Canada has warned us, we will have a snowstorm that will dump another five to ten centimetres of snow on us. But today, today was just glorious. By the time we exited the ravine, having circuited the ravine in a large loop for an hour, I was warm enough to pull off my gloves and head band.

And then we decamped briefly to the Sally Ann, and both of us came away with some interesting books. I came away with one by Cormack McCarthy (The Road), one by Alistair MacLeod (No Great Mischief), another by Roddy Doyle (Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha). And one by Jonathan Rauch (A Search for the Soul of Japan), and W.H. McNeill's The Rise of the West, A History of the Human Community.

When I informed our granddaughter, she reserved the McCarthy novel for herself ... after I read it, of course, and I've been cautioned to treat it with respect, not to fold corners, bend anything out of shape; to be delivered to her in the mint condition that it and she deserve.

And then she told me her news. An acceptance by University of Toronto. As though she hasn't been agonizing sufficiently over her acceptances by Dalhousie University and York University. Now she has to bend her mind to all the pros and cons yet again over which she will attend. But I'm betting it will be University of Toronto.

She's already busying herself once again poring over the on-line information regarding residency availability and meal plans. Though she did mention as well she still intends to complete her application for Simon Fraser University in British Columbia. She's out to conquer the world of academia.

At a time when few women breast-fed their babies back in 1959 to 1962 when we had our own three I had decided that I would breast-feed because even then it was known that babies thrived when fed in the traditional manner, that mother's milk conferred an advantage on babies' health. Beyond which I felt it was the natural thing to do. I had no advice from anyone, nor sought any. Although I was aware that liquid intake was important to the production of milk. I never experienced any difficulties adjusting our babies suckling, and the procedure was one that we all took to with no problems.

Nor do I recall ever experiencing awkward moments when out in public faced with the urgency to feed one of our children, then and there. Perhaps it was because I was aware of their needs and timing was of the essence, and planning ahead helped to avoid such situations. In the last two decades young mothers have been urged to breast-feed their babies to confer upon them all the health and bonding benefits that accrue. And a new militant, entitled movement has insisted that the public be part of this process. Restaurants and retail establishments of all types have made an effort to comply with the newly perceived need of mothers to nurse their babies on call, many providing 'nursing' and 'changing' stations.

Ikea, the big-box furniture-dry goods store from Sweden is one of those emporiums that cater to women with young children, providing for them places where they can privately, discreetly nurse their young. It is a quiet nourishing process, after all, requiring an atmosphere of peaceful solitude and relaxation. A process that is not best accomplished in public areas busy with people going about the process of shopping.

This wasn't good enough for one young woman who was shopping there with her nine-month-old and two-year-old children. She decided, while waiting in a line-up at the cash, to respond to her restive child by nursing her then and there. And when a manager, summoned to respond to a request for information regarding a price on an item the young mother was interested in arrived -- curtly recommending that they could discuss the price issue once the mother had taken herself and her child to a nursing station and had completed that task first, leading the outraged mother to let loose a profanity in response -- the situation became public with the young mother claiming she had never been so horribly treated before.

A blog I had posted soon after reading the news item received an inordinate number of local visits, traffic seeming to stream from those invested in the situation, eliciting a few comments going either way.  http://pieface-ruminations.blogspot.ca/2014/03/socially-inappropriate-hissy-fit-all.html

Rae Griffen-Carlson

And today's newspaper reported on a "flash feed nurse-in" that took place at that same Ikea store where management had apologized profusely, claiming themselves to be hugely invested in being nursing-friendly. While at the same time being unable to find any evidence whatever, through questioning staff or viewing closed circuit video that such an incident had ever actually taken place. 

Although the 'injured' mother described how her two-year-old son later that evening refused to take the breast because he said, it was 'icky', for the lady at the Ikea store had given him that impression, and the mother demanded an apology to her heartbroken son.

The difference in my activities last week mostly revolved around preparing lunch. We ourselves don't eat lunch, and haven't for more years than I can recall. When, as a young mother of three I prepared lunch for our children, I would also read to them during lunch. That certainly solved the problem of ensuring that the children ate their meals; they were so transfixed by the classic children's tales, eventually reaching out to more mind-challenging stories I would read to them, they polished their plates clean.

I simply found it inconvenient to have lunch myself, and just didn't bother. I suppose because I was so busy with a myriad of things that a mother is engaged with when raising three young children, with a year and a half separating the three in age, that I didn't miss lunch time for myself. My husband drifted into the habit once he retired from the workforce, and that is closing in on twenty years. Neither of us miss not having an afternoon meal.

But when we have company that afternoon meal becomes a necessity to present to others, as a good host. And in the case of our granddaughter deciding to spend March-break week with us it was a decided necessity. So I called upon memory to dredge up recipes that are always palate pleasing to the young. It takes but a few minutes for me to prepare bread dough for pizza, and a few minutes more to cut up fresh vegetables and cheese to top it with. Preparing a small macaroni-and-cheese casserole does take a bit longer, but it's her favourite. There are always salads, and corn on the cob, and chopped egg- or tuna-salad sandwiches as alternatives. She isn't that hard to please, pleased to have placed before her light meals that the young favour.

Her grandfather offered to take her out and about on little shopping expeditions. There is that peculiarity about her as a teen that she is not an avid shopper. Generally, she takes the time to research things she is interested in, on line to determined where they're sold to best advantage in price and accessibility. And there are so many places in close proximity to where we live it takes but an instant to reach them. She will enter a shop, select what she wants, and exit it speedily. I often don't accompany them because I cannot abide the interiors of shopping malls. She isn't keen to join her friends on shopping expeditions, because as far as she is concerned, wandering about a shopping mall represents an utter waste of time.

She far prefers to do other things, reading chiefly among them. She still enjoys being mothered -- or in this instance, grandmothered. To be smothered with hugs, which she initiates, and tucked into bed at night with a kiss.

In the past, she would often visit with us bringing along a girlfriend to share the time, space and relaxed atmosphere with, and since these visits happened most often in the summer months we would haul both girls off to various outdoor venues. She is conflicted about this, deciding she better enjoys being here with us when there are no distractions, when she can just relax and think of nothing, if that is what her mind brings her to.

Though I never find myself short of inspiration for the production of sweet delicacies to embellish Friday night dinner, my husband is always helpfully on the lookout for recipes he finds attractive, recommending them for a try-out in place of my usual fairly broad selection of baked goods which I retain in the filing cabinet I store into memory.

A few days ago he came across something called a 'Chelsea loaf' that appealed to him enormously. It is not, in point of fact, all that different from many other yeast-raised sweet breads stuffed with dried fruit that I have baked on occasion over the years. Most often when he hears of or sees a recipe that he is intrigued by, it has its premier presentation in our home, is somewhat appreciated, but never so much so that it calls out for repeats.

But my husband is never short of enthusiasm. His enthusiasm, needless to say, does not start and end with gustatory treats. He swiftly develops an interest in all sorts of things, and propelled by his natural curiosity, goes on to study those areas that prick  his interest, from art and crafts production to himself becoming familiar with the trades like plumbing, electrical, hard-landscape techniques, even furniture production. Applying himself to any project at hand that he becomes invested in, and doing a fairly good job of anything he turns his hand to.

He has even tried, on occasion, baking cakes, but the results persuaded him to leave that sphere to me. Not that he doesn't engage himself in kitchen things; he bought and uses a bread-maker and from time to time bakes a bread, especially geared through its constituents, to appeal to my taste. Well, back to the 'Chelsea loaf' that requires not only raisins and currants which I have in my baking pantry, but also candied cherries and citrus, which I have not. So off he went to the local bulk-food store, where he loves to poke around at any time, and he brought back raisins (which we had in abundance already), cherries and candied citrus peel. Oh, and those old-fashioned colourful licorice candies.

He mumbled something when he got home about the cashier at the store chuckling and warning my husband that he would be 'in for it' when he arrived home with his purchases. And when I looked at what he'd brought home I asked, did they not have rigid plastic containers available? He had packed the cherries and the several types of citrus peel straight into plastic bags. The resulting mess, with the sugar-glazed fruit clinging unhelpfully to the bags' interiors as I attempted to put them into glass jars was quite awkward.

My dear husband, chagrined and apologetic, did his best to be helpful as I transferred the gooey mess from plastic to glass for storage. As it happened, I had already baked a cheesecake with a glazed raspberry top, to please our granddaughter who loves cheesecake, as does her grandfather. The 'Chelsea loaf' will have to wait for next week.

Like his wife, he has rheumatoid arthritis. Unlike his wife he refused to avoid pain and discomfort. While she succumbed to the occasional use of a wheelchair, then became increasingly reliant on it to avoid growing pain. He, on the other hand refused to allow pain to get the upper hand over him. He convinced himself he would ward off the debilitating effects of his condition by not recognizing his own physical misery to allow it to get the better of him. So he pushed himself daily, regardless of the weather, out into the woods, as though punishing himself for a disability his gathering age and genetic inheritance threw at him.

We would see him often, a frail looking man with a friendly smile, always prepared to expand eloquently on his health and that of his wife, and how she was completely physically reliant on him to provide 24-hour care. He had had their bathroom remodelled to make it wheelchair-accessible, and installed lifts to enable him to cope with her growing weight, to get her into the bathtub, and on the toilet. He did all this cheerfully, considering it no less than his loving obligation to his lifelong partner in marriage, child-raising and mutual dependence.

Some relief was afforded him daily with the arrival for a few hours of a nursing assistant, enabling him to take the time off required for him to embark on his daily ravine excursion. He was mindful always of the time, anxious not to overstay himself, and this resulted in his hurried, harried approach to the venture, moving as swiftly as he was capable of, to cover as great a distance as he could manage. It was his life-therapy.

We always think of him as being fairly gnomish, at least in appearance. Originally from Switzerland, now a Canadian citizen, he enjoys speaking of international affairs and bemoans the oafishness of new youth wherever they happen to live. His colour choice is unvarying is red-and-white, perhaps reflective of both the Swiss and the Canadian flags, both red-and-white. White is for the glaring white cotton shirt he wears, summer and winter. Red is for the lightly lined jacket he wears over it, along with a red toque. It never ceases to amaze us that such a light-bodied person could remain warm enough to counter the effects of winter conditions, wearing just a light jacket suitable, in our opinion, for early fall. Red is also the colour on his otherwise pale face, when during his energetic and far more strenuous walking stride than our own, his nose and his cheeks turn flaming red from exertion.

We haven't seen him for months, not once during the winter, and nor had we seen him during the late fall months. We knew he was in increasing pain and was awaiting a hip replacement. And we theorized that this is just what had occurred; he'd finally had the surgery and was undergoing post-surgical therapy. And then, a few days ago, there he was, the familiar, slight figure, a walking pole in either hand, striding along the snow in our snow-laden forested ravine. Wide grin on his face, he said he'd been out and about for a week, following his November surgery and subsequent recovery.

Delighted no end to be walking again without pain.

Well, there's a bit of unexpected news. Our granddaughter asked if we would agree to having her stay over with us for March break, this coming week. How else would we respond than with a welcome? We've long been accustomed to having her stay with us, but she hasn't had an opportunity to, over the last two years.

We were her caregivers while her mother and father were out working in the first nine years of her life. And it had become customary as she grew older into her teens that she would want to stay with us for that week. She'd accompanied us on a few occasions when we went off in the summer months to the mountains of New Hampshire, to indulge in our passion to be deep in the out-of-doors in the state's national forests, and climbing the mountains that held such an allure for us for so many years.

So now she's arriving to spend next week with us. When I did the grocery shopping yesterday I made sure to double up on fruits, vegetables, yogurt and cheese. She's vegetarian, something she decided a few years ago, after doing some quite intense research for several school assignments on conditions in which farm animals live and the suffering they experience in slaughterhouses. She wants no part of the animal carnage. In that sense she joins my sister, my brother, our nephew and our younger son, along with her own mother.

So I'll be altering our normal meal menu for the coming week with an emphasis on non-meat strategies. I have ample sources to rely on. For her it will be a treat to have someone else cook for her for a few days. And come up with some baking treats that she enjoys. For us, it'll be the pleasure of having her close by for a few days.

We'll no doubt be spending time jaunting about here and there with her. After which there is little doubt we'll be exhausted. At least for the day following her return home.

We've wondered where all the common house sparrows have gone. They were once so ubiquitous they were seen everywhere, perching twittering in trees, scratching under cars to pick up the grist they need to help them digest their scavenged food; anywhere one might look in the great out-of-doors the most common avian sight was the sparrow. It had suddenly occurred to us one day that we just don't see them any more.

Can it be possible that domestic cats have succeeded in destroying their presence? It's a well enough recognized fact that cat depredation on birds is horrendous in its scope, and seen to be the primary cause of a significant dip in the numbers of songbirds now seen in North America. Our obsession with domestic pets hasn't impinged on our consciousness that pet ownership comes with a responsibility. If we're responsible for the proliferation of domestic cats in society, then we're also responsible to ensure we've done our utmost to ensure that they don't prey on wildlife beyond the point of sustainability.

We realize that we'll have to put an end to our bird/squirrel/rabbit feeding station fairly soon. While it remains extremely cold, long past the time when we might have reason to think the weather must soon moderate as we edge into spring, it won't be long before the neighbourhood cats resume their prowling. And we don't want to be responsible for the carnage that ensues when they do, around our own home. We've been through this before and finding the tiny corpses that have been mangled by a well-fed cat amusing itself is not a great experience.

Wildlife that surrounds us will increasingly be able to find their own food sources in abundance as warmer weather inevitably does arrive. In the meantime, we're still getting ample cold and snow events. The 'canopy' that my husband put up over the feeding area on our porch a month ago has been quite useful in ensuring that snow doesn't completely engulf the seeds and nuts. It will all soon have to be disassembled.

When a pair of black squirrels alongside a red one were on the porch this morning, we suddenly saw a grey tabby approaching, seemingly out of nowhere. As alert as the squirrels are, cats are extremely skilled as predators. That was our first signal. As much as nature has equipped her creatures with their primary, overriding instinct of survival, that compulsion is often enough surmounted by a quite dreadful fate.

Yesterday she was gripped in an emotional paroxysm of rage at what she perceived to be the trivialization of violence against women. More specifically, the news coverage from some sources interpreting what has come to be called "rape culture" that seems to pop up aggravatingly within the halls of academia with some male students apprehended in juvenile fantasies appearing to regard their female student counterparts as bait for the realization of those violent imaginings.

That in an age where society has finally focused on a high awareness of the power imbalance between men and women, with programs designed to give women greater confidence and men greater understanding of equality and respect. That there remains such abysmal holdouts where young men in group-think feel it is perfectly all right to be sexual predators is disheartening to say the least.

In our conversation of yesterday, emotionally charged in her outrage against the phenomena and peoples' propensity to invoke the 'boys will be boys', rather than 'boys should grow up' on their way to becoming men argument, we turned to consoling one another, and casting blame on familial environments where young boys pattern themselves after those closest to them, acquiring all the attitudes of male dominance.

And then came a following news story, where one of five male predators who had targeted the female president of the University of Ottawa student federation in a Facebook conversation -- in a salacious, disgustingly verbally graphic back-and-forth threatening her with rape -- was the son of a highly respected local police chief.

The young woman in question had received an anonymously-dispatched email containing the five-way Facebook conversation, and she courageously confronted the five men, all fellow student leaders within the student federation. Expressing her anger and disgust, she spoke in no uncertain terms of her feelings. They apologized, while citing privacy and intrusion into their privacy, assuring her that no real harm was meant to come to her; just boys spouting off.

When she indicated she was appalled at their behaviour and considered their response inadequate in explaining their attitudes and meant to go public with it, they then threatened her with a lawsuit that would turn on their right to privacy which she was invading. The absurdity of the situation doesn't appear to have occurred to them, that they were victimizing a female student counterpart twice over.

The son of the local police chief, whom his father in private anguish, reached out to the public to ask that his son be given some space, was on the cusp of graduating from his criminology course, following in the footsteps of his father who had in his time taken the same course at the same university. And he was one of two men who had verbalized the most seriously violent sexual fantasy, interpreted as an incitement to rape.

He was tall and robust and looked as though he had barely entered his thirties. Black hair, black beard and moustache, and a bulging midsection, too heavily protruding even for his size, and certainly for his age. But a personable young man intent on doing his job. His job at the moment, as a technician working for Bell Canada was to fix a problem.

Late last week I'd received a telephone call informing me that at no cost to us, Bell Canada would like to set up an appointment for one of their technicians to come by and identify the cause of our poor Internet connection. I hadn't complained. They were receiving signals of problems leading them to the opinion that they weren't delivering the service we were paying for. The problem was not isolated to simply our reception, needless to say, it was an ongoing situation that prevailed across the city. And the company had initiated a program to identify and offer improvements to those individuals for whom the performance of Internet connectivity was impaired for whatever reason.

My husband had installed splitters on all of our telephone connections years ago, as required, for the modem supplied to us by Bell Canada to function properly. As it happens, the computer station we have in our family room is a distance from the telephone outlet to which it is connected, standing in a corner beside the windows, necessitating that a long wire be snaked under the area rug from the outlet to the computer.

Our visiting technician asked permission to drill a home in a discreet corner of the floor beside where the desk top computer sits inside a computer station, and he proceeded to do just that, spending the next part of an hour threading wire directly to the main telephone box located in the basement, installing other technical devices and finally completing what he had come to do.

He expressed interest in the number of paintings we have on our walls. His mother, he said, loved paintings and would be fascinated, looking at ours. I laughed and asked him how she would react to cleaning a house cluttered with so many paintings. He matter-of-factly responded she wouldn't be able to. She has been diagnosed with cancer of the throat and it's difficult for her to breathe, much less do anything much physical.

I asked a question that, when I mouthed it, sounded ridiculous, the assumption being his response would be "certainly, of course". Is she receiving treatment, was the question, and, amazingly, no she refuses treatment was the response. I felt incredulous and perhaps that was reflected in my facial expression. He went on to explain that she didn't want to 'bother' with going to the hospital for daily treatment sessions. And besides, she had no intention of losing her hair.

At age 64, she had been a habitual smoker all her life, but in the last few years had stopped smoking, he said. It was obviously a preventive action too late in arriving. He said 'I wouldn't mind temporarily losing my hair if it meant I could be treated', and I nodded. What else was there to say?

It has been close to forty years since I first began volunteering as a charitable fund-raiser. It began, as such things generally do, when someone precious to me was stricken with a dreadful disease. Before that, I had the experience of witnessing my father, an inveterate cigarette smoker, slowly succumb to cancer.

But it was when our oldest son in his teen years was diagnosed with juvenile-onset Type One diabetes that I felt a desperate need to do something to advance research that might result in saving our son from the dreadful future potential of blindness, kidney failure, heart and stroke events, neuropathy resulting in limb amputations. The horror stories based in reality of diabetes' leaps into further damage to the human body are mind-numbing in their scope.

That, aside from the need for daily vigilance, to ensure that blood sugar levels, as far as could be managed, be kept within 'normal' acceptable range. That, aside from daily self-administrations of insulin. That, aside from the necessity of the individual diagnosed with diabetes accepting that diagnosis and fully immersing self in the protocols that might enable them to live as close to normal a life as possible.

So that worrying concern on behalf of our son who never shirked his obligation to his future, impelled me to begin door-to-door canvassing at a time when it hadn't been undertaken by the Canadian Diabetes Association in any serious well-managed manner. It also led to my accepting an offer to open a branch office in my city. While learning all I possibly could about diabetes, learning also how to manage an office providing information to those afflicted, arranging for informative meetings and eventually setting up an in-office 'store' for the sale of diabetes-management tools at prices advantageous to the user.

And to learn how best to mount a yearly fundraising campaign, distributing advertising, eliciting participation from among the branch membership, engaging in public relations, overseeing the campaign, publishing an informative branch newsletter and managing the financial accounts of the branch, answerable to the region and the national office. I never did stop my own door-to-door canvassing efforts, though to be absolutely truthful, I hated the annual ritual and never felt comfortable with it.

In succeeding years I lent my experience with door-to-door canvassing to the need to raise funds for charitable organizations focusing on cancer, arthritis, disabilities, kidney disease, heart and stroke, and of course, diabetes. There were times when during the space of a year I would undertake three, even four such canvasses; enterprises that I never learned to love, yet felt determined to take part in, as a public, civic duty. Our neighbours mostly responded extremely well.

This year at the urging of my husband who very well knows how depressed I often feel returning from one of those door-to-door solicitation outings, I refused all requests from those charitable organizations that I have helped support over the years. Although for the most part, those outings could be very pleasant, since in later years I only canvassed the street I now live on, and neighbours tend to be well - neighbourly, I couldn't help but inwardly wince when each of those canvass months came around.

Now I'm free. I have adamantly refused any further canvassing activities on my part. Just about. I still have the Canadian Cancer Society canvass that I've committed to, for yet another year. How could I refuse, I ask myself, when the captain I've answered to for the last dozen years is now in her mid-80s and still going strong?

When we experienced a very much appreciated lull in the extreme cold weather last week, causing the creek in the ravine to begin flowing once again, temporarily freed from the ice capping it during these colder-than-normal for the period days of unending chill, we saw to our amazement, a number of robins, flitting about the open waters edged with ice.

Several days later, when it had become colder, but not quite as icy as it would once again become, we heard the unmistakable melody of robins singing their welcome of spring. If only that old phrase "from your mouth to god's ear", expressed any kind of reality ...  Environment Canada has issued one of its regular quarterly prognostications about the weather to come, and the warning is to expect that over the coming months the warmth we anticipate will be delayed. Cold will continue to grip the geography.

A winter flock of about 30 robins was noted in one area of the city. Robins, which traditionally fled to warmer climes in anticipation of winter, have figured out how they could survive winter here, likely because over the last decade or so winters have declined in their severity. This winter just happens to be one considered to be more 'traditional' to this northern hemisphere. So the robins that have accustomed themselves to staying put, must be experiencing quite the challenge to survive this winter.

Some area naturalists point out that dark-eyed juncos, whose appearance would once have been rare in the winter now winter-over, making use of winter feeders. Juncos make their regular daily appearance at our bird feeders, and we're delighted to see them. In the past we've seen robins alighting on our two miniature crab apple trees to peck at the fruit.

But it seems they have been feeding on tiny aquatic insects in areas where waters manage to run free. They feed on invertebrates in pool vegetation debris and have actually been seen to 'fish', dipping into the iced-over

stream edges to capture and consume small minnows. Catfish minnows, bullfrog and green frog tadpoles form part of their winter diet.

Who would have thought...?

Years ago -- it seems like a lifetime, in fact -- when I was first introduced to the Internet, whenever any invitations to take part in a quiz or some kind of questionnaire would pop up, I'd be intrigued, and tend to respond. At one point, I even signed up to be a regular for a well-known polling group, until I'd completed a few polls and became rather bored and even disgusted with the realization that this was a completely commercial focus that I was lending myself to.

It was a marketing tool for the polling firm, to satisfy the market needs of their clients. And since my interest in acquiring the latest electronic gadgets, associated software, and use of various types of food products, particularly those that had been processed slightly beyond the 'food' range as I saw it was severely limited, I soon cut off any further acquiescence to continue being a source of data in subjects I had no interest in. I certainly had no interest in promoting commercial products, nor of assisting the manufacturers or distributors of those products to enlarge their sales opportunities.

Which brings me to the latest types of pop-ups, those blithely guaranteeing seniors that with the use of their brilliantly-devised mind games, the brains of those teetering on their golden years could be enhanced, enabled to battle Alzheimer's before it took a toehold. I view all come-ons askance, and these in particular. While at the same time acknowledging that what isn't being used to its full potential will incrementally degrade.

It's not that I particularly gear any of my activities toward the preservation of my grey matter. What does happen, though, is that I continue to be psychologically involved in what goes on about me, and I use my brain and my communication skills such as they are to advantage. Reading, writing, making contact, conversing, attempting to solve the many puzzles of human emotions, behaviour, including dysfunctions. And, needless to say, remaining physically active.

I've read that roughly one hundred research studies on cognitive training have been published, all of them said to have been peer reviewed. The result being that researchers appear not to be in accord whether brain training works and if it does happens to work, which regimen is most effective. What was also pointed out is that training games offered by commercial companies have no research backing them up to support their advertised efficacy.

Neuroscientist Dr. Adrian Owen studied over eleven thousand people busying their brains in commercial brain training, in 2010. Their purpose was to improve memory, reasoning, attention and other abilities. Dr. Owen discovered no evidence that general cognitive ability was improved through training.

He did acknowledge that the subjects improved their ability to succeed at the cognitive tasks they were trained on, but "no evidence was found for transfer effects to untrained tasks, even when those tasks were cognitively closely related".

On the other hand, it appears to be a scientifically proven fact that we can enhance memory, boost our cognitive thinking and reduce the risk of dementia by enjoying certain foods:

• Dark chocolate contains flavonoids, powerful antioxidants with memory- and mood-enhancing properties;
• Oily fish like salmon, trout, sardines and mackerel -- and more -- are packed with omega-3 fatty acids, great for healthy brain function;
• Green vegetables like broccoli, cabbage, kale, bok choy and brussels sprouts contain antioxidants, vitamin C and plant compounds called carotenoids, powerful brain protectors;
• Curry contains a chemical called curcumin which research has identified to boost memory, slowing the progression of Alzheimer's;
• Seeds and nuts are good sources of vitamin E, helping to reduce cognitive decline in the elderly;
• Blueberries help protect the brain from stress, and may reduce the effects of age-related conditions like Alzheimer's or dementia.

I don't often find my weekly grocery shopping cash register receipt at variance with what I actually shopped for, but I observe a ritual scrutiny of the receipt at home, after I've done the shopping, and put everything away. That ritual resulted from my having often discovered that I'd been charged wrongly, or items were misidentified in the past. The supermarket where I regularly shop has long since ensured that they input correct data in their computers, since most of the errors originated there, where sale items hadn't been changed to reflect that sale price in their pricing inventory.

After my shopping excursion last week, though, I discovered a few glaring irregularities in what I'd actually purchased as opposed to what I was charged for. We enjoy having oranges and bananas daily for our breakfast, but we also alternate between oranges and melons. Usually I find that honeydew melons and cantaloupes are available, but leap at the opportunity to put other types of melons on the breakfast table, when they're available. And last week the store had Canary melons on their shelves, so I bought three of them, at a very good price of $2.97 each.

I discovered, when perusing my receipt that I'd been charged instead for spaghetti squash, three of them, at over $5.00 each. So I retained that receipt, pulled the identifying stickers off the three melons, stuck them to the receipt and the following week returned the receipt back to the store, and was given a refund of almost six dollars, representing almost half of what I spend weekly for food staples to put out in the large receptacle placed in the store's foyer accepting donations for our area Food Bank.

Those Canary melons were still available, so I bought another two, never imagining that another cashier, all of whom are excellent at their job, good-natured and friendly young women, would plug in yet again 'spaghetti squash', at their prevailing higher cost. So, that's another cash register receipt that will be returned once again.

I felt badly presenting it at the Customer Service desk because the person who looks after that client-interface desk is someone I've known casually for years, an older woman I really like. And she was busy, harried, a line of people needing attention. She looked absolutely awful that day, wan, drained of energy, so I asked if she was nursing a cold once my turn had arrived. No, she said, smiling ruefully, just awfully tired.

During that same shopping expedition I meant to buy a package of blackberries. I'd seen an intriguing looking upside-down fruitcake recipe in the newspaper of the day before's food section, and thought I'd try it. Another woman, beside me, was also carefully selecting among the blackberries and I mentioned to her the recipe. She laughed and admitted that she'd seen it as well herself, and that was her purpose in buying the fruit. Like me, she was intrigued enough to try the cake for a family dessert treat.