So it was a bit of a brief family day for us yesterday, when our middle child, our daughter, and our youngest  child, the younger of our two sons, were with us yesterday. It gave our daughter and our son an opportunity to have some deep conversations together, and at one point in the afternoon, we all decided to go out for a walk in the forest to exercise our limbs and our limbic system at one and the same time.

At one time in human history children remained geographically in proximity to where they were born. Today it's a far different story with offspring attaining adulthood reaching far and wide geographically to find their futures. And so it is with us, although our children have remained in Canada. A country that is geologically diverse, vast and beautiful.

Each little corner of the world has its especial areas of note and ours is the privilege of living in a free and prosperous country with ready access to our natural surrounding and opportunity to be exposed to multifaceted lifestyles within a wide range of communities. We are satisfied and comfortable in ours and consider ourselves fortunate to live in peace and harmony with others around us.

Off we went on an overcast day, with little wind and a high temperature of -2C, where the forest trails were nicely trodden through caution was required on the hills which tend to be slippery under winter conditions, but otherwise our hike was completely relaxed and bracing, giving us the opportunity to continue talking amongst ourselves and breaking off occasionally when we came across others whom we know, to introduce everyone around. In some instances, no re-introduction was required.

And the same thing happens with the four-legged companions accompanying us. Our daughter brought along her 14-year-old Husky-German Shepherd mix Sara, who despite her years remains curious and boisterous in temperament. During our woodland hike we came across a number of hiking friends with their dogs and everyone got along well, because they know one another with the exception of Sara.

At one juncture we came across Nova, the now-8-month-old white German Shepherd. She stands considerably taller than Sara, but since they were almost matched for size in comparison to Sara and our two, they took the occasion for a romp with one another. Soon along came others we didn't know walking a brindle hound mix and a dark brown boxer still a puppy, and a regular melee ensued with all six dogs leaping about and chasing one another, Jackie and Jillie providing the high-pitched musical accompaniment.

Our two children are both in their mid-50s, obviously more vigorous and energetic than we are, so they matched their speed of locomotion to ours, more or less. We pause briefly when we climb to the top of each hill, and they've no need to. It can be a problem when the weather is very cold and the wind cutting, to have the stamina to forge full speed ahead -- the energy expended keeping up with the cold -- when slow-downs are required because of our slower gait, it means the cold has an opportunity to seep deep within, matching the decelerated energy output.

No complaints from anyone, however.