I wasn't feeling any too sprightly by Wednesday morning, after a night of extreme discomfort when I awoke on a number of occasions, feeling my hands -- first one then the other -- tightly clenched as though they were paralyzed rigidly stiff, urging me to begin flexing my fingers back and forth until they assumed normalcy. Those vaccines, one for pneumonia administered in my upper left arm and the tetanus, pertussis, diphtheria combination in my right arm caused a surprisingly averse reaction, particularly in my left arm.

By early evening  on Tuesday, my upper left arm had swollen visibly, the skin bright pink, and painful. I wasn't feeling all that much better the following morning, but went ahead with our usual routine. Usually I clean the bathrooms on Wednesday, so though I couldn't really lift, stretch or in any way extend my left arm, I did what I could. The weather was giving us a break; snow the day before and Wednesday's high was 3C degrees.

Knowing we were in for an abrupt change over the next few days, I was loathe to surrender to the extreme discomfort of my arm by foregoing our usual hike through the forest trails. So we decided we'd forge ahead and did; in the process determining how far we would go based on how I felt. As it happened, I felt sound enough to keep going, so we had our usual long circuit. It was assuredly mild but at the same time a brisk wind lashed across our faces in more open areas. All the accumulated snow had also been whipped off the trees. losing that ethereal quality we so much enjoyed on our early Tuesday ravine walk.

But it was also a most interesting walk. We came across quite a number of people we'd never before seen in the ravine. With them their companion dogs, also new to us. Invariably these dogs are well mannered (unlike our own) and happy to come across others. One little Yorkie-Poodle mix fit right in with our two most companionably.

I was hoping, given my new temporarily frail condition, not to run across the two large-breed dogs that don't respect a decent distance between their powerful bodies and people they're curious about. The heavier of the two, a young bull mastiff only several weeks back knocked me over onto the trail, but I fell well, and no harm was done. If that happened again with my throbbing arm, a good fall couldn't be guaranteed.

So, wouldn't you know it, halfway through our hike along came those very two, the bull mastiff and the part great Dane which had just delivered a litter of six. They're distinctly friendly and curious dogs but have no inherent sense of their great muscular power. The bull mastiff is reaching physical maturity and he's large -- and graceful. When he approached as usual at a gallop I held my breath and steeled myself, but there was no forceful physical contact this time, just a nudge as he went by.

Jackie, as usual, thinks it's appropriate to hurry after the departing two giants expressing his opinion of them in no uncertain terms. We've found that with few exceptions most large dogs have inordinate patience with yappy little dogs, evincing a degree of puzzlement at their noisy, assertive challenges, then sauntering off in disinterest. For which trait, we are grateful.

Then they returned to their human companion, always far behind them, a young man who makes no effort to keep them in sight. We waved, and off they went in the opposite direction, leaving us to resume our own direction, taking us through the network of connecting trails until we felt that an  hour and a half of tramping through the forest would do us nicely for the day.