Although it always seems strange to us that usually on Saturdays we see no one else hiking through the ravine other than ourselves, we always attribute it to the fact that Saturday remains for many people, their primary shopping day. It is for people in the workforce, and remains so for people now retired who are most comfortable doing what they've always done; habits are hard to break.

Yesterday, though it was Saturday we were surprised to come across no end of people, most of them walking their dogs of various descriptions, many of whom we'd never before encountered. So it was a busier-than-usual time for Jackie and Jillie running about making the acquaintance of other dogs, large and small, yesterday.

We speculated that it might just be people were exhausted with shopping since the day before was one of those abominable "Black Friday" opportunities for Christmas shoppers -- luring people in to various stores to check off their family-and-friends list-of-obligatory-gifts. So that by Saturday they needed another distraction more inclined to relax than stress them.

It  helped of course that yesterday was also a weather antidote to the kind of extreme cold and snowy days we've had in mid-November, this year. All morning the skies were clear and the sun beamed down warming the atmosphere. Leading to a temperature high of 0C, which was more than pleasant. By afternoon the clouds had returned with a warning of freezing rain, but the freezing rain held off until evening.

Everyone out on the trails appeared to be happy about where they were, and with good reason. The landscape remains steeped in snow, still glued to tree trunks and every horizontal surface is deep in accumulated snow. Jackie and Jillie had a nice romp with a feisty little terrier, and a similar roust-about with a brindle boxer puppy of 8 months of age, happy to find any dogs that he could play with.

There were more. Like Iggy, the little beagle. That's Mike's little fellow. Once Mike had his beloved Ruby, a scrubby little terrier mix that he loved unconditionally. Ruby agitated to go to the ravine so she could make her way into the creek. It was the creek that she pined for, to rummage about in it with her stubby little paws and follow its trajectory as far as she could, Mike patiently following her above, on the bank above.

We'd know when Ruby was about because we could hear her joyful little yips as she made her way through the shallow, muddy water of the creek. We are never so indulgent with our two, who tend to avoid water in any event. Button, our little black miniature poodle also loved the water. But once when she had been down in the creek she came away with a deep gash in one of her legs from a run-in with a broken bottle. That was the last time we allowed her to muddle her way through the creek.

Little Iggy has become the apple of Mike's and his wife's eyes. Their grief assuaged as much as possible with Ruby's loss. Their other dog whom Mike rarely takes into the ravine, is a much larger, shambling mix of breeds and not given to much physical output. He has taken to Iggy's introduction into their household, but it's his house and Iggy knows his place in it.