We just cannot recall a winter quite like this one. It's been extraordinarily strange. Although in Ottawa we're well accustomed to the vicissitudes of weather, and the way it can change dramatically and drastically in the space of hours; one day unlike the other, this one has been notable for its excesses. There have been other times in the past when we've been rudely introduced to weather inclement enough to make us alter our lifestyles however briefly.

The 1998 winter ice storm that enveloped a wide swath of territory from Canada (primarily Ontario and Quebec) to the United States (New York State, Vermont, New Hampshire) was one of those times. That's when it was truly dangerous to venture into the woods. Standing at the cusp of the ravine we could hear the continual sharp sound of branches heavier with ice than they could sustain, cracking off and falling to the forest floor.

This year has been unusual in the sustained periods of out-of-the-ordinary succession of days where the temperature remained under -20C and less at night and failed to rise beyond -16C during the day. That was followed by milder days, freezing rain events, milder days yet with days of pure rain, then snap-freeze-ups that turned all that precipitation into ice, followed by colder days again, and snow.

You guessed it; that led to more freezing rain, rain and an eventual thick layer of ice covering everything. And that's where we are now, and have been for the past week. So everything is slick with ice, making for fairly awkward conditions. We have always kept our backyard pathways shovelled out for our little dogs. At this juncture what they do on the trails is slither, slide and slip. And so do we. It ain't fun.

Hard to remember at times that there's a pleasant back-yard-worth of garden under all that snow and ice.