It had taken me a year to finally feel that my arms had strengthened to what I would consider to be normal, able to do just about anything without discomfort. The result of too much physical exertion at the same time last year, emptying our garden planters. Now, a second's slip, an accident that could have been foreseen but was shifted aside as manageable, yet turned out not to be has put me not only back to square one, but beyond it. It seems likely that I've suffered a rotator cuff tear, the mobility in my left arm at the shoulder and impacting downward from there has been compromised and I've been compensating with my still-reasonably-intact left arm.

So I felt kind of relieved when I was able to manage dressing myself into outsized tops yesterday, carefully slipping my right arm into garments, then slowly placing the rest, left arm, torso into said garment, avoiding anything else for the time being that might present as an unworkable solution and sticking to tops I can get into bottoms-up,  from feet up to hips up to shoulders, or garments that zip or button right up the front. I felt good about solving that problem.

Yesterday turned out a dull, heavily overcast, cool and extremely windy day, but no ongoing rain events unlike the day before. So, on with a really large zipper-front fleecy and over it a large water-proof windbreaker to both break the wind and keep me dry in the event of rain while we were out. Jackie and Jillie were dressed for the weather in their lined rainjackets and off we went. Ferrying them up the street to the ravine entrance meant holding Jackie's leash in my left hand.

As soon as we entered the ravine, off came the leashes, and off they both sprinted ahead of us. The forest floor fully reflected the deluge of the day before, though newfallen leaves had managed a good job of covering everything, including the sidetrail to the  right where I had slipped and sustained my injury the evening before. We took the trail to the left as usual, and set off for an enjoyable hike with the puppies to fulfill our leisure-pleasure obligations to them and to ourselves for the afternoon.

Eyes drawn to the colourful masts of maples and poplars and the windblown landscape of scurrying fallen leaves is mesmerizing. The vibrancy of colour shadings, the thickening piles of foliage, the brightness of it all simply captures the eyes in a fascinating conceit of wildly vivacious transitional beauty. It's as though memory is telling us to look deep and hard and store that beauty for memory-refreshing recall in the darkest winter months to convince ourselves that the cycle is timeless. Soon enough the poplar leaves, so bright and as gold as the sun will change again, this time to an unappetizing grey-black tone, unpleasant to regard after the thrilling yellows, pinks and reds.

Oblivious to our impressions, Jackie and Jillie focus on trotting ahead, scoping by sight and by hearing and by smell whether there might be any others on the trail, up the hill, across the bridge, taking the opportunity like themselves to check on the state of the glorious day, dark as it was without benefit of sun. Just as the night before when we were meandering along the trails in near-darkness and Jackie was intent on spurting off-trail into the underbrush to satisfy his curiosity, now, unleashed, he did the same, effortlessly leaping uphill in a series of bounds that made him look almost airbound.

No, no one else had ventured out, but ourselves. The cold, brisk wind and dark overcast obviously failed to convince others that it would be worth the effort to get out on the trails, so once again the area became our private preserve. I felt perfectly normal, no discomfort, much less pain from my injured arm. It's only when I attempt to raise it, to exert a motion with it as I would normally do that it informs me in no uncertain terms that anything beyond allowing it to hang by my side is out of bounds.

I was able to do some basic clean-up after breakfast which I also managed with patience to cutting a breakfast melon in half, the knife firmly steadied in my unmoving right hand, while my left hand slowly turned the melon until it was halved, then halved again. Coffee, tea, toast? No problem. Shuffling a dry mop over the kitchen floor, then a light electric broom over the rugs? Manageable with my left arm, albeit clumsy and time-consuming.

And for dinner, coating chicken breasts with Panko and seasoning, slicing potatoes and pulling cauliflower apart, check. All in their separate casserole dishes embellished with olive oil, to be oven-roasted for dinner. I'd been unable to bake anything for dessert, or make up a bread dough, though. We had wonderful fresh strawberries from Quebec for dessert.

But my husband thought he'd go ahead and 'bake' a dessert. He'd bought a greaseless little doughnut maker years ago, and he put it to use yesterday. He mixed together 1-1/4 cup of flour, 1 tsp.baking powder, 1/4 tsp.salt, 1 tsp.nutmeg, then 1/4 c.butter, 1/2 cup granulated sugar, one egg, and 1/2 cup milk. He had the kitchen to himself. I was reading in the family room, with Jackie and Jillie snoozing beside me. And tablespoon by tablespoon he carefully placed the resulting batter into his heated little contraption, to produce bite-sized doughnuts. The only preparation of the electric doughnut-maker was to spray it first with a small slick of vegetable oil.

Its delicious fragrance spread through the house. And complemented our meal, later that evening.