Little wonder we Canadians tend to be so obsessed with weather. No, we're not alone in that preoccupation, but we certainly must rank pretty high on the weather-neurotic scale. Primarily that's because although weather is unpredictable it's also volatile and ever-changing and all too often anything but moderate here in the Ottawa Valley.

It can be head-spinning for those unfamiliar with this very particular atmosphere that prevails in a huge valley system, who has lately arrived to live here. On the other hand, even people who have lived here for decades, let alone all their lives can feel consternation at the changeability of weather from one day to the next.

It's winter. It's January. Two days ago the temperature overnight was close to -20C, a day later the high for the day was 2C, and it was raining so heavily and without cease for the entire day that we received 43.1 mm of rain. By nightfall the temperature began to fall and then the rain turned to ice pellets, ice pellets to snow.

The snow was well received, a relief, in fact. Because all that rain had made hash of our snowpack. Which is fine for spring's arrival but we're a long way from that time of year. So, we couldn't get out for our daily hike through the woods yesterday because of incessant rain. And had the mild temperature been sustained today, one shudders to think of the mess the forest trails would have been in. 

But snow fell overnight and then again this morning. Not much, not much more than 3 cm, but it covered the ice that had formed resulting from the rain, and the dropping temperature. It was -9C when we set out for our ravine walk with Jackie and Jillie this afternoon. The sun had come out, and was out simultaneously for a brief period even when snow flurries flecked the landscape. But there was also a biting wind and it made the cold seem much, much colder.

The trails, however, were just fine. Jackie and Jillie may be suspecting that things just aren't the same, for them. Their freedom to gad about as the spirit takes them has been curtailed. Severely. Our little dogs have long been accustomed to enjoying our woodland treks ambling and scurrying about here and there and now they're kept on leash. Life is so unfair.

On the other hand, should they encounter a coyote life would be ever so much more unfair. People who forge through the ravine on a regular basis with small dogs all now know that the presence of coyotes has been confirmed by quite a few encounters, and there have also been a few misadventures, and small dogs are particularly vulnerable.

So inconvenient as it is, and lamentable as it is that our carefree and spontaneous tramps through the woods are no longer either of both, we've had to agree better safe than sorry. On the good news front, it was a sunny afternoon and the landscape was lovely, lightly sprinkled with new snow, the sun beaming through the canopy at a low angle, brightening an already bright aspect of the winter forest, and we enjoyed the beauty of it all.

Jackie and Jillie even had the opportunity to engage in some quite serious and friendly conversations with some of their friends, just as we had with ours. All of which was pleasant enough for us to regard the wind sending its creeping fingers of ice through our almost-warm-enough jackets as a nuisance soon to be remedied when we would enter our home, just down the street from the ravine entrance.