We've been faithful to the forest trails almost every day for the past thirty years. Our introduction to the forested ravine across from the street where our house stands began the day we moved into the house. When we were both still working on week days our ravine forays took place in the evening hours either before dinner or after. When winter came that meant hiking through the woods after sundown. We quickly learned to navigate at night, and it wasn't difficult, particularly when snow covered the forest, because somehow the lights from the city beyond our suburb glanced off clouds and came back down to light the forest.

Cloudy nights were infinitely more lit up than moonlit nights, for on those cloudy nights in the winter when light bounced down off the clouds it was as clear and bright almost as during the daylight hours and perspective was very serviceable; only the ambient light was either pink in tone or mauve, and it was beyond delightful. Now our ravine hikes are confined to the daylight hours since we've been retired for the past several decades.

When we first began our forays we quickly made friends with many people, who like us came out daily and were semi-retired or retired or close to it. Everyone came out with their respective dogs. It was the dogs that introduced their people to one another, in fact, and it's always that way. Dogs are the openers to the shells of privacy that people build around them. Most of those friends are long gone. We rarely, if ever see any of them any longer. Their dogs gone, most people kind of give up on walking through the forest.

We've made a whole new set of friends and acquaintances long since, and that too is a revolving event when new people come along with their dogs. We get to know the dogs and their human companions, a relaxed, friendly and open environment where everyone is happy to see everyone else on the occasions when they run into each other. And although we come out once daily for an hour or an hour-and-a-half of hiking through the various interconnecting trails, there are some people for whom the day isn't complete without two circuits and for some, three; morning, early afternoon and late afternoon.

We find it a little perplexing in that some days it seems we can barely horseshoe in enough time to do everything we want or have to get done in a day. For others, it seems to be no problem; much of their day is entirely devoted to taking their dogs out for multiple runs in the ravine through the forest trails. Barrie, our friend with the three Border Collies does that; he begins in the morning, goes out again early afternoon and returns late afternoon. He is determined that their three high-energy dogs get their exercise. This is a fellow who has had more than his share of serious health problems; in a three-year period he had no fewer than seven surgeries, from having a shunt running from his brain to his stomach cavity to drain fluid on his brain, to repairing a broken clavicle, to a number of back surgeries. Despite which he remains a high-energy person  himself.

It's about all we can manage to get out once a day with Jackie and Jillie. And the times when we venture out vary considerably, depending on so many things, from weather conditions to finishing up household chores or making appointments for one thing or another, or simply planning on other types of recreational activities. Our lives are more spontaneous than the structure that many depend upon, to  find comfort in habit, insisting that things be done in a specific order at a specific time. But it's whatever works for anyone.

Yesterday, we enjoyed a day of sunshine with pretty brisk winds negating the milder temperature. There is ample evidence that the sun and the milder weather is having its gradual effect on the snowpack. Cracks are beginning to appear, where when the snow melts it runs downhill and finds its way through the ice, creating deep runnels that become larger and wider as the days progress. So we're getting there, slowly but surely.