Winter has finally overcome its own obstinacy in making an appearance just as 2015 prepares to bow out into history, never to be recovered. Winter of 2016 has made its initial appearance, and it obviously intends to compensate for its predecessor's tardiness, to blanket our landscape with an explosion of snow with a fair resemblance to what should have fallen and remained on the ground had this been a normal November/December.

This morning the feeders were crowded with squirrels, and the top bird feeder hosted a few birds, but nothing yet signalling that they realize their opportunistic browsing in nature's fall landscape has been brought to an abrupt end.

Today is also my birthday, and last night on the cusp of midnight I was presented with my annual birthday card. This one quite large, and to me the most beautiful of them all, though of course I must say that every year. My husband sequestered himself a few days ago to create the latest card. He had, weeks earlier, presented me with the gifts he had bought for me; he is simply incapable of 'keeping a secret', or keeping anything from me that he has already committed to.

Looking at framed photographs of the two of us at various stages in our lives, it's surprising how many of those photos were taken in the out-of-doors, but perhaps not, since the great outdoors is what beckons us continually, as it has since we were old enough to observe and treasure those times when we, as urban children, were exposed to nature.