Before breakfast, I threw out a handful of peanuts onto the porch floor as usual. It took little time before a small black squirrel came along to avail himself.  After breakfast we usually cut any leftover buttered toast into small squares and place them out on the side stairs. Any number of neighbourhood squirrels come around to take the daily offerings.

But it's at the front of the house, viewing the outside from inside that attracts Jackie as he stations himself in front of the glassed door to watch who comes and goes. Sometimes silently, sometimes ferociously barking. This morning it was toasted bagels that were cubed and placed on the porch, while plain bread made its way to the side of the house. The bagels were gone pretty quickly, it took awhile longer for the side door, also glass but not a favourite perch for Jackie, to be free of offerings.

Crows are extremely intelligent, they remember where they foraged last year and don't hesitate to return. The squirrels are around and about the area and similarly drawn to return to where winter food has been placed out for them. It is, after all, a matter of survival. Raccoons, rabbits, birds and skunks no longer visit us. We can't be certain, but it's possible that all the food we regularly put out for them on our porch the last few winters -- kibble, seeds, nuts and bread -- that brought them around daily, even in the middle of the day, was the cause for one of our neighbours to discover both squirrel and raccoon nests in their attic.

We had yet another mild day on the cusp of freezing, but with overcast skies and some wind. We imagined that the trails would be improved today due to more time having elapsed since the snowfall of the night before, giving trail hikers the opportunity to tamp them down even more. Ascending the hills,  however, with the depth of the new snow, is a bit of a struggle.

And though the wind was fairly brisk, and even more so at the height of the forest canopy, sending treetops swaying back and forth, at walking level it was tolerable. And it hadn't yet fully succeeded in whisking the new snow off branches of evergreens, though the trunks of trees remained plastered in white in the direction the wind had been blowing when the last storm hit, on Sunday night.

Now that we're hiking with them on leash, Jillie is more subdued. She can no longer run helter-skelter, scampering well ahead of us as she used to do. Now, though on leash, it is Jackie who pulls ahead. Jillie is content to walk behind me, thrusting her little head regularly against the back of my leg as we walk almost in tandem, a habit she developed years ago.

The trails are even more narrow now with the latest snowfall, so we really have to walk single-file. Jackie followed by me, then Jillie and my husband bringing up the rear, so to speak. We encourage Jillie to run ahead with Jackie but her heart isn't in it, other than when they detect someone up ahead coming toward us and she becomes excited and rushes on to see who it is, friend or foe. The decibel of her barks, from excitedly welcoming/friendly to shrilly hysterical reflects her opinion of whoever will soon zoom into view.

The snowpack has increased considerably. Although it's taken longer than it does to accumulate in most years, snow on all the bridges is rising steadily. Packed down hard by all the boots treading over the snow, but their level has gained a considerable height. Nothing, however, like the year when we had so much snow it reached to the height of the tallest rail on the bridges and our granddaughter was fearful of walking on the bridges.