Several months ago high winds brought down half of a tall old poplar in the ravine. The top mast, when it broke off, had been stopped from toppling to the forest floor when its mast got hooked on another tree opposite the trail. It looked firmly ensconced, so there was no concern that it might fall over the trail. Then, about a week ago we saw, as we ascended the hill to the top where the poplar top had stretched over the trail that it had been re-positioned.

As we came abreast of it, the reason for the poplar mast having moved became obvious. The bottom half now was stuck firmly to the ground and the top of it was once again affixed to another tree's limbs, keeping it from fully descending. But instead of being astride the trail and fixed still to the bottom half, it now stood right in the middle of the trail. So someone, obviously with a chainsaw had decided to bring the tree down, then discovered that his intervention did no such thing, merely moved it to an inconvenient place.

It would, due to its inconvenient placement, be almost impossible for any one person to manoeuvre the tree to the ground by sawing through it again, without risking great harm to themselves. It would now take the work of a crew to figure out how to bring it down without harming anyone. Meanwhile, it's fixed there and unless the sturdy tree holding it in place is itself somehow threatened, it will remain there. Until a work crew comes along to remove it.

The forest looks a bit forlorn now, and in places almost dismal, with the dearth of foliage left on the trees. Thank heavens we've got at least fifty percent evergreens among the deciduous trees in our wonderful urban forest. Two nights ago, when the temperature really dipped we had a lot of freezing rain and  hail come down. The result of which was that the standing pools of water on the forest floor occasioned by the last bouts of heavy rain days earlier had frozen into little ice rinks.

It's so cold now that we've brought out the fleece-lined woolly coats that we bought for Jackie and Jillie when we were in New Hampshire; they're just so much more reasonable in price there than at home; at least 70% less expensive, and that's prohibitive. They seemed to like the coats and wearing them doesn't hinder their movement one bit. While sheltering them from the effects of the penetrating wind and cold it leaves them free to do their usual sprints and wanderings.

At minus-eightC, with a good stiff wind, if there were snow down on the ground their little paws would freeze  and they would need boots, but since it was dry underfoot and the ground, well frost-penetrated as a result of the unusual cold, really hard, it was easy going, we no longer had to bypass the deeply muddy parts of the trail.