After a grateful number of moderating temperature days so far in this new year, we've been plunged once again into an icy spell. Cold enough that it takes resolve to get out there for our  usual ravine walks with our little dogs. Wind, which had accompanied the colder temperatures, made for some pretty miserable episodes in the past few days, but yesterday, though the temperature nudged up to minus 7.9 degrees, there was barely discernible wind, and so our trek through the forest was more pleasant.

I've taken to wearing thin insulating gloves under my mitts for warmth, and so that I can remove the mitts and still have some protection on my hands from the cold. Even so, yesterday the digits of both hands became extremely cold edging toward painful. But the impulse to take photographs of the scenes before us compels me to leave myself vulnerable to the discomfort, so it's of my own making that I end up with frozen fingers.

We've also been fortunate that we haven't yet had to put Muttluks on Jackie and Jillie. Despite the frigid temperatures they've seemed oblivious to the cold on their little pads, never pausing or hesitating to go on through the trails, making numerous side-trips to satisfy their curiosity, through the trees off-trail.

The snow on  the forest floor has acquired a bit of stiffness and a nice crust, thanks to alternating days of snow, rain and freezing rain. So when they venture off trail onto the much elevated snowpack, they don't sink into the snow at all, as we with our immeasurably greater weight, would. We see few people out now in this numbing cold. Which isn't surprising. Although people who have companion dogs likely get out throughout the day at times other than when we're in there.

Today the temperature will struggle to get above minus-11 degrees, and with the wind chill factored in, it will seem like minus-25 degrees. Still Jackie and Jillie are happy because the sun is out sailing across a clear blue sky, and they agitate to be out on the deck for brief periods where they wrestle happily with one another, the sun temporarily warming them through their black hair, until the cold penetrates sufficiently to persuade them to re-enter the house.