Although we began our snow clean-up after the big storm yesterday, there was more to be done today. Delighted that the newspapers could be delivered today though, and welcomed their presence warmly. What's breakfast without a leisurely time spent looking through the newspapers, after all? So unlike yesterday morning when we were bereft of them because the publisher wasn't able to get out into the weather- and snow-beaten landscape with their deliveries we had to rely on papers I'd saved to get around to some day, and that day was yesterday.

After which back out we went to once again clear the accumulated snow off the top of the canopy sitting on the deck. That canopy shields our breakfast room from the bright heat of the summer sun, and also keeps the deck dry when it rains so we can sit out even in the rain if we feel like it, but during the winter months it's a right royal pain since the canopy cannot sustain the weight of a foot of snow.

When we go out to do the shovelling in the backyard to clear runways for Jackie and Jillie after a snowfall, they're decidedly unhappy. They can watch us out the sliding patio doors, but you'd think we'd abandoned them forever and ever the way they carry on, barking and yipping, demanding to be let out into a landscape with more snow than they can swim through until it's cleared away.

We've had this much snow accumulation in other winters, where pathways had to be cleared to enable access to the backyard, leaving great piles of snow on either side of them. In some places the snow is as tall as I am, confining Jackie and Jillie to the cleared pathways. This morning while there was still some loose snow in piles here and there thanks to the wind and the continuing flurries yesterday following the storm of the day before they were quite delighted and performed one of their frantic-antic runabouts, chasing one another, to come finally back into the house thoroughly doused in snow.

We set out for the ravine in mid-afternoon. We'd missed one day, yesterday, when the street hadn't been plowed and we knew that though some hardy souls would likely have been out breaking trail, it would be too difficult for us to do that at our age nor would it be possible for Jackie and Jillie, given their size and weight to wade through the foot of new snow.

We had to clamber over the newly-heightened barrier between the street and the entrance to the ravine, and that's what happens every winter, too. And though others had been through the new snow before us, it was pretty tough going. Even where the trail had been broken, the snow was loose, deep and slippery and consequently the uneven pattern of those who had gone before left us floundering and sliding. Ascending hills was a problem, laborious and time-consuming; descending a slight improvement.

But ah, the landscape, the incomparable, shining beauty of that white transformation creating yet again a new winter wonderland, how else see it other than to make the effort to get out and into it? The sun full out sailing in that ocean of blue, glancing its light and warmth over the unmarked snow shimmering in its embrace. There is no sound, all muffled by the snow smothering everything. And then, the staccato of a woodpecker.

Jackie and Jillie become quite excited in the presence of fluffy, new snow. Their little rubber boots protecting their delicate footpads, they race about happily. Jackie manages to expend twice as much energy as Jillie in their madcap runabouts; sometimes she chooses not to respond to his invitations to a race; not quite as impetuous as he always is; the sensible one, perhaps gender-related. Oh dear, did I say that?!