Since Friday's all-day rain made for a missed ravine walk on Friday, we were happy enough to wake on Saturday morning to a wide-open, bright blue sky. When the sun shines, as it mostly does in our region throughout the winter months that means a cold day. Not only was it cold yesterday but the wind was icily cutting, swaying tree tops rhythmically in a Dance of the Happy Shades.

While not as cold as mid-winter, the daytime high struggled to get to -1C, much colder with the effect of that brusque wind, shoving against us as we made our way up the street. The street, officially in spring, looks quite unlike a spring mode. It is itself still thick with ice, though some pavement is beginning to show through the pack, while the snowbanks remain high, in some instances six feet tall.

Some shelter from the effect of the blasting effect was to be had -- a welcome relief -- once we descended into the ravine, but the forest paths pass back and forth across the creek, at some considerable stretches remaining deep in the ravine, at others ascending onto the long forested ridges forming the spine of the forest and then exposure is guaranteed, despite the density of trees.

We didn't mind the cold, though we did the wind. For one thing, cold means that the high of the day before, a balmy 7C with copious rainfall was certain to make a sloshing mess of the trails. But there was little trace of that left when an overnight low of -6C firmed the trails up again into the icy form we can at least grip with our cleats. And that describes the trails that met us yesterday, except where some melting did occur on the hillsides those areas turned to treacherously icy surfaces we carefully avoided climbing uphill.

A pleasant walk through the forest trails was most definitely in the offing for Jackie and Jillie. We exchanged their winter rain coats for their warmer cold-weather coats since threat of rain had a zero likelihood, unlike many forays we take when the weather seems to change on a dime, from overcast and light snow or icy drizzle to sunshine, all during the space of an afternoon's ramble of an hour-and-a-half.

Plenty of company out and about, as it happened, for our two little black trouble-makers, with whom they were able to run about wildly and work off some of that stored energy. And for us, some additional interest in coming across familiar ravine frequenters who invariably bring others up to date on their latest winter getaway or what they've been doing to upgrade their kitchens and bathrooms, both types of events hugely popular during the winter months, both types of enterprises favourite topics that people like to boast about.

It's the verbal equivalent, I tend to think, of friendly dogs leaving their marking scents on tree trunks or posts, or, in fact, anything protruding that must appear to them a likely venue for neighbourhood canine news.