We were late into the ravine yesterday afternoon, after I'd done the usual Monday house-cleaning. But it was mild, though overcast and we saw others out a modest assortment of dogs walking their people. Lugubrious Charlie was out and about with her person, always happy despite her sad appearing face, to see people she is familiar with, and appreciative of a good ear rub.

Today, however, we set out in drizzle earlier than yesterday, wearing rain gear to venture into a colder day, where the snow underfoot couldn't make up its mind to revert to ice or remain slush. Making it difficult to get about, challenging both for the slippery effect and the fact that far more energy is required to plod ahead.

The snowpack is gradually melting. There is so much of it, and it is yet so deep that it seems, looking at it in an assessing manner wherever we turn our gaze, that surely it will take forever before we see green dominating the landscape again.

It is in weather that turns from winter into spring, when the air is still crisp and the sun shines that a sharp eye can see snowfleas (springtails) leaping about on the snow surface. In our younger days when my eyesight was not yet compromised I could see them clearly enough. I remember years ago describing them to an acquaintance, baffled by his disbelief that any such creatures even existed. I had the experience of seeing them, but he denied their existence.

Even little Riley was dressed for the rain and plodded along with us. This is when the pristine snow becomes detritus-laden and impressively unattractive, as it shrinks in volume to betray the sight of all the litter that it has acquired over the winter months.

The creek and its far-flung tributaries, all swollen with the runoff; in places tea-coloured, but mostly muddy appearing has also been transformed. You can smell the 'mud', and at other times the odour of swamp gas makes itself known in the rushing, swirling water headed toward the Ottawa River.

A week ago we heard a raven from somewhere deep in the ravine; heard it but weren't able to locate it. The cardinals have taken on their spring song, inexpressibly exquisite, vying with the robins for the championship of ebullient exuberance of natural musical expression.

In the woods, there are immature copses of beech and ironwood that stubbornly insisted on retaining their foliage, though they have turned crisply transparent. At times they seem the only colour relief in an otherwise monochromatic landscape.