Whereas the day before we had encountered barely anyone during our hour-and-a-half walk in the woods, the following day -- yesterday -- we came across quite a few people out walking their dogs. The difference, we assume as we usually do, was the temperature; Monday's -7C and whipping winds despite some sun, as opposed to yesterday's relatively balmy -2C and scant wind, detained many from embarking on a forest trail adventure.

Apart from a few people we often see yesterday we came abreast several others we see only intermittently. Just the day before, Sheila had informed us that they'd seen an orthopedic surgeon who evaluated her husband's spine, discovering serious irregularities in three disks one of which was crushing a nerve and responsible for the excruciating pain he had been suffering for the past five months. Now he is scheduled for his fifth surgery in a two-year span; one concerning a dislocated shoulder, two a shunt from his brain to his abdomen relieving water pressure on his brain and another for a hernia. As a testament to the urgency of the situation he is scheduled for December 7 surgery, a mere two weeks following the initial appointment. His past as a special-unit RCMP officer and his dedication to extreme sport has caught up with him. An Iron Man competition he had attended in Florida this past summer caused his latest bout with the mechanics of physical health.

Along with the people we encountered Tuesday there was the usual doggy contingent. Another young man we hadn't seen in ages with his golden retriever, an excitable young dog that usually leaps on people as he did me while I was clambering uphill, setting me off-balance and completely turning me around, but not down. This fellow usually assumes a gloomy mien and it occupied space on his face yesterday. He had pronation problems due to a bone spur in one of his feet that has kept him out of the ravine.

These are all people whose acquaintance we have made over the years through encounters solely in the ravine, on our daily walks. People tend to unburden themselves to others whom they feel will listen to them and silently empathize. That's telling; people need to speak with someone, sometimes anyone who will listen to their concerns and the opportunity to do that, to find people who will listen to others unburdening themselves of fears seems to be generally missing in society.

Our friend who wears a pacemaker resulting from heart failure was out yesterday, another whom we haven't seen in ages; sporadically since his wonderful German shepherd female suddenly died months ago. He still comes out regularly but not as frequently as he had, missing yet 'seeing' her in their old familiar haunts. His own heart found it just too difficult to keep supplying this huge specimen of a man with a regular blood flow to his organs and his extremities; the burden simply exhausted its capacities. Now he strides about with far more ease, his concern over his heart condition eased but his yearning for his dog constant.

Finally, just minutes before we had completed our circuit, we came across another rarely-encountered man, two-thirds our own age, who is contemplating the retirement years ahead and though he has several years to go yet before retiring, he informed us he has decided with his wife that they would sell their house, buy a little cottage on a lake, acquire a boat and set off from time to time on ambitious trips sailing around the Caribbean. His wife, he said, is an accomplished sailor and he would learn from her.

Alongside him was his large, black, long-haired dog, a mysterious mix of breeds with a quiet disposition in whom the hunting instinct remains intact. She runs off constantly in all directions, and our two follow her usually a short distance as she leaps and bounds after squirrels easily outdistancing her. Before long, as we stood talking together, we were alerted to something more unusual. She had routed a fox, and it was energetically spurting before the dog. From where we stood we just happened to have unusually good sightlines and were able to see the fox race along the trail, the dog in hot pursuit. We felt, watching the spectacle, that the fox wasn't really making all that much of an effort to escape.

Our friend whistled and called for his dog, but she ignored him, and he sighed. He explained to us that this was likely a young fox they'd encountered on previous occasions, and once when his dog actually came abreast of the fox, she simply tumbled it over, evidently more interested in playing than preying. We fervently hoped that to be the case.