When we heard the weather forecast after listening to the morning news we knew we would be going out for our daily hike through the winter woods earlier than usual. At that time of the morning it was -3C, with little wind. But the forecast informed us that the temperature would be steadily falling to -11C with wind gusts at 40kmh, so the windchill factor brought us to -24C. We thought it better to avoid that, so right after cleaning up from breakfast and dawdling about a bit more, we prepared for a dash through the woods.

We'd had more snow overnight and were in fact, surprised to see that it added some loft to what we already had received earlier. The sky was fully overcast, with those typical silver-pewter shades of a snowy winter day, and the wind had already picked up somewhat, blowing directly toward us as we made our way up the street. We discovered that the black, muddy mess left behind on the trail's entrance to the ravine by the tracked drilling machine had been heaped over with a fine gravel mix and over that the light snow that had fallen overnight.

Just as we began our descent into the ravine a blond mastiff came along which explained to us why it was that Jackie and Jillie were barking hysterically and soon afterward the mastiff was joined by an equally large black dog, both of them quiet and well-behaved, minimally interested in our two noisy maniacs.

Eventually, as we were admiring the two large dogs and petting them, along came two girls, catching up with the dogs. The mastiff, lean, muscular and active was only nine months old, playful and curious about everything.

We descended into the ravine in a group, then took opposite paths into the forest. The girls were without gloves, (there's a high school teachers' rotating strike on) and wore sneakers, despite the height of the snow. They were exuberant and as happy as their dogs, a lovely match. We hoofed it down the slope into the forest and they slid their way down, as unconcerned about slipping as only youth can be.

As beautiful as the forest had appeared in the previous days soon after the original snowfall, still left ornamenting the trees, they were given an overnight topping that brought the depth of their snow mantle even higher, brighter, and lovelier. Remarkably, the sun blazed through the cloud cover several times, sparkling the snow and adding its own magic touch to the landscape. And then, predictably or not, snow began falling in light drifts.

Before long we could feel the wind picking up considerably, enough so that it was able to disturb the snow-laden boughs of evergreens and create several episodic micro-whiteouts as the snow tumbled down and created a dense curtain of snowflakes carried by the wind, eventually touching down to the forest floor.

The wonderful aspect of the forest shortly following a burst of falling snow enticed others to come along into the ravine, and we came across Jago the Husky walking alongside an apricot miniature poodle, the first time we'd ever seen the little fellow. To our surprise, Jackie followed the poodle, evincing a rare interest and initiated a playful chase, even though he'd never before met the little dog. Usually it's Jillie who makes those overtures to other dogs. As our friends moved off with their dogs, Jackie eventually reminded himself that we were moving in the opposite direction and decided to zip back and join his family.