This icy weather pattern repeats itself and yet another extreme weather warning has been issued by Environment Canada. Yesterday morning when we came downstairs for breakfast the thermometer read minus 29 degrees; extreme by any measure. And that did not include the bitter iciness exacerbated by a stiff wind, although the morning sun did its best to alleviate the bone-chilling cold.

Our two puppies try to evade having sweaters pulled onto their little bodies as a shield against the extreme cold before we let them out, but even the sweaters don't help much in this type of conditions. They end up piteously lifting their tiny paws and sometimes they're frozen so rigidly they hardly make it under their own steam to rampage back into the warm house.

Despite which, we noted their restlessness yesterday The day before was even more cold, and we had decided to skip our daily ravine walk. But yesterday, once the temperature struggled up to minus 15 and the wind, we thought, had abated somewhat, we decided to forge ahead with a walk. We put on a heavier sweater for each of them with their winter jackets over those, and got their little boots on, and prepared ourselves to face the windy cold.

The wind's nasty effect doubles the cold, and we quickly made our way from the street down into the ravine where the forest fairly well shields us for the most part from rampaging winds. Jackie and Jillie were once again in their  element, happy to be free to frolic and stampede their way along the trails, vying with one another for the lead, leaping gracefully over one another when the mood took them. We were grateful that on this extremely icy day all of their boots stayed on and didn't need additional adjustment.

Taking gloves off even briefly results in digits painfully aching from the extreme cold. I had a layer under my jacket that I could hoist up around the lower part of my face, but Irving erred in not putting a scarf over the neck of his jacket, and felt the consequences of that oversight. The only solution is to forge briskly ahead to work up a head of steam. Even so through the many layers I was wearing I could feel the icy fingers of wind and cold penetrating from time to time.

Jackie and Jillie racing ahead to greet Max

We saw Max out, his face red with both exertion and cold, and we briefly stopped to talk. We saw also another man we'd got to know casually since last year, walking his yellow Lab and a neighbour's black Lab. We were glad to part company with him eventually because the big dogs were entirely too interested in our two little ones, making them very uncomfortable to the point that Jackie asked to be picked up to escape their intimidating attention.

But for those two, the ravine was empty of visitors, people exercising their options to remain indoors rather than expose themselves to this incredibly inclement weather.

Add caption