Our ragamuffin duo, try as I might, are difficult to capture in photographs. It's almost as though they're averse to having their photographs taken. Any time I have my camera handy and want to capture one or both of them indulging in some really fascinating behaviour, by the time I aim and shoot they've gone on to other activities. What I'm invariably left with is a useless, blurred photograph.

Of course, my trusty old camera is just that, randomly trusty but creakily old. Newer iterations have been designed to correct those little irritating lacks of capacity, because the camera is in its elderly years. Like me. Technology leaps forward in great bounds. I still recall back when I was in my youngish adult years how amazed I was with the emergency of transistor technology.

When my then-young husband bought a small transistor radio in the late '50s we felt we had entered the world of ultimate technological revolution. Little could we have imagined back then the imminent world of truly modern technology with the world-wide-web of the Internet, and how communication and information would be achieved so effortlessly.

But that's another story. This one is about our two puppies, Jackie and Jillie, black woolly little imps that they are. They seem to know without even waiting for obvious clues, whatever is happening in the house. They sense our moods and react to them. They entertain us endlessly with their capers. In short, they earn the place they have in our home and our hearts. But try to capture them in a photo that looks directly at their physical attributes?

Forget it. They have none, in fact. They are totally absent that 'cute' factor that melts the hearts of onlookers. On the other hand, they have all that in abundance, in our estimation, in a 'for your eyes only' type of resonance.

This morning when my husband prepared to take out the usual pailful of accumulated compost from the kitchen to the backyard composter, we noted that it was snowing. Yesterday it was so frigid, with the temperature managing to nudge up no further than minus-sixC, and wind gusts measuring 50 km/hr, that I felt not the slightest urge to dig into a pocket to retrieve my camera, unlike most of our ravine jaunts. Particularly when only the day previous it was mild enough to rain.

Before my husband even got his jacket on, our two little black sheep were whirling about in an ecstasy of expectation. A little ritual has resulted with the taking out of the compost; they know what it is comprised of, fruit and vegetable skins, egg shells, coffee grinds, and of huge interest to them in particular -- leftover, buttered bits of morning toast. It's tidbits of that toast that they avidly anticipate, and my husband never fails to ensure they are not disappointed. I can complain 'till the cows come home that they don't need those leftovers, but to no avail.

After which, following hard on their breakfast and ours, they're prepared to settle down for a while, resting after the rigours of the morning.