Nature seemed to go out of her way to treat us with an abundance of weather scenarios on our afternoon walk yesterday. Tempestuous, if nothing else. Just one of those days when indecision struck and weather patterns were erratic in the extreme, but of course, there's nothing 'reasonable' or 'normal' where nature is involved.

We never quite know what we'll come across when we venture into the ravine, nature's very special precincts and ours -- along with other people fortunate enough to live close by wedded to the concept of our natural surroundings having a profound effect on our well-being and tending to make the most of the experience of immersing themselves within it temporarily -- to spend some quality time in admiration of the landscape before us.

It's an absolute must, of course, for our two little dogs. They may not evince much enthusiasm when we begin to accoutre them for the weather so they won't freeze on the forest trails, but once out there, their joy is unbounded. In fact, they bound effortlessly in their little rubber boots on frozen trails unaware that without those boots their paws would soon freeze up and so would they.

We happened yesterday to come across another little poodle, this one fairly new to the experience and making the most of it. Still a puppy, under a year old, this little fellow's happy antics in the snow quite resembled how Jackie and Jillie disported themselves constantly years ago when they were young as they rampaged through the scenery in an excess of enthusiastic joy at exposure to all the experiences and adventures that life had in store for them.

In their maturity they've become a tad sanguine, but never to the point where they fail to appreciate fully how it feels to be imbued with a sense of freedom and happiness roaming about to their hearts' content, investigating here and there, sniffing for signals, awaiting the arrival of acquaintances and greeting any who do materialize with unalloyed glee.

In the space of the hour that we delved into the ravine and made our way along well-tracked forest trails we experienced the sight of an overhead sun illuminating patches of deep snow where its rays manage to penetrate through the winter canopy absent foliage. These emerging sun triumphs were speedily followed by fierce flurries, however briefly, and a wind that howled through the forest canopy.

Those gale-bursts of wind intermittently interrupting the sun created white-outs as the branches and boughs of snow-laden trees bending and swaying to the thrust of the wind, surrendered their snow burdens, the wind lifting the snow and scattering it throughout the atmosphere, veiling sightlines in an almost opaque blur of white.

So we had a swift succession of a still atmosphere with the sun gleaming brightly followed by an uptick in wind roaring through the trees releasing their abundance of snow, and then calm, where flurries resumed, and this succession of events kept repeating throughout the time we spent on our leisure trek through the trails on a day where the high registered -10C, and night would bring us -26C with ongoing wind.