Jackie, skinny as he is, has little natural protection against the cold -- unlike Jillie, who is so solid and well packed that she feels the intrusion of cold less than he does -- and needs to come back into the house as quickly as possible after their brief forays of necessity into the backyard these days. It takes a few seconds of exposure and he begins to lift his delicate little feet. Not that Jillie isn't affected as well; it just takes a few seconds longer for her.

Immediately they go out into the snow they begin to run about after each other with manic energy, the urge to play over-riding the urge to evacuate. Even that brief energy expenditure isn't enough to keep the icy cold driven by a wicked wind from penetrating immediately. So, it's been out-and-in for them the last two days while the thermometer hasn't budged above -17C at the 'warmest' part of the day.

We put the fireplace on even before breakfast this morning and it's been blazing away all day. The heat that emanates from it, though it's a gas fireplace, is really monumentally helpful in warming up the family room. But we figured this day was an excellent candidate for having these little guys wear light sweaters to help keep the heat in. They were actually excited to be dressed; could be they linked that with going out, but there's no 'going out' for prolonged periods as long as this weather persists.

It's not that we haven't gone out in such weather before on many occasions. But never when the wind is so persistently nasty. As soon as any of the walkways front or back, or the driveway is shovelled, back in comes the snow, whipped back into place by the wind. Because the wind so effortlessly lifts the snow from surfaces with height, whirling it about in white ghostly sheets, it almost seems as though it's perpetually snowing.

On the other hand, for prolonged periods this afternoon the skies cleared and the winter sun came blazing out of its hibernation these past few days. Our two-story windows at the back of the house were brilliantly illuminated, the sun's rays warming them and they in turn transferring heat to the house interior. A very nice gesture on the part of Mother Nature.

Back in early fall we had been experiencing problems with our telephone landline and Internet connection. So along came Bell, our service provider, to detect a problem, temporarily linking us up with one of our neighbours. A permanent solution was in waiting. And unbelievably, Bell has chosen this week to get the work done. At this very moment, a small steam shovel is digging frantically into our front lawn. The purpose: to create a 'hole' five feet by five feet by five feet; depth, width and length respectively.

After which Bell technicians are supposed to be able to proceed with the permanent solution. But there's more at work here than just our faulty connection; the entire street on our side has been prepared for some kind of excavation and introduction of some kind of cables; flags identifying gas lines and other sensitive areas to be avoided have popped up everywhere.

Watching the shovel operator attempting to penetrate the frost line was quite the picture. Frost has penetrated so deeply that the shovel had to be employed repeatedly smashing down in a staccato effort to break through. When the excavation is complete, it will be topped with boards and surrounded by fencing. We can only imagine how this will affect our garden. Our mature trees of every variety will no doubt struggle in the spring for it would not be possible for that kind of digging to go on at that depth and width without disturbing some of the critical tree roots of our mature trees.

On the good-news side, however, we're looking forward to making a break for the ravine's forested trails tomorrow, to resume our trail walks, since the forecast for the weather promises an absence of harsh winds and rising temperatures.