Yesterday's sun beckoned to Jackie and Jillie, promising them the comfort of warmth from that brilliant orb should they just venture outside, and so they insisted that despite the deeply-packed snow from this winter season remaining intact in the backyard, they wanted to be out on the deck, soaking in the warming sun rays, and we accommodated them.

On the plus side today, it's mild out. However, it's also steadily raining. Mild enough to bypass snow and just give us straight rain. To begin to wash away months of snowfall accumulated on the ground. That's a considerable process since there's plenty of snow to wash out of the landscape. It will be hastened with mild days like today, and all the more so, with rain. A landscape that will, at least temporarily, be dreadfully unattractive, the snow as it melts taking on a grimy look that is anything but appealing.

A different story prevailed yesterday when it was a degree or so milder than today, and the sun was in full splendour sailing through the wide expanse of a periwinkle blue ocean. Clouds did gradually move in, white, wispy and tentative at first, but the sun was aggressively in command of the sky and it prevailed for most of the day. It wasn't until early evening that the rain arrived. And hasn't yet departed.

For the first time in months Jackie and Jillie were able to wear only little sweaters on our day's foray into the ravine. Cold from the thick snowpack on the forest floor radiates upward and makes it seem colder than it really is, however. And it really was still quite cold as long as we were tramping through the trails in the shadow of the forest canopy, shielding us from the sun's warming rays.

But it was so comfortable being out in the woods, and the landscape remains so bewitching yet with its deep covering of snow that we decided we'd just keep going, and make yesterday's hike through the forest longer than usual. Jackie and Jillie didn't mind one bit, they just kept pumping their little legs, kept accosting irresistible odours, vying with one another for the 'me first' opportunity to judge what the smells represented, conveying the resulting message one to the other.

We had gone out earlier than our usual time and figured we'd most certainly see many others out and about on the trails, given the perfect conditions, but we were wrong. We saw only two familiar forms walking their companion dogs in the far-off distance to wave to, but none others whatever. With the winter-denuded branches of trees if you're hiking through trails deep in the ravine, you can look up toward the distant ridges at some vantage points and view others hiking about up there, and vice versa.

The melting snowpack made it feel as though, in some areas, that we were trudging along, our boots slightly sinking into the diminished and melting snow-ice footing. Instead of feeling sure-footed, you feel like a sloppy laggard, slipping backward from time to time. The crampons do help, considerably. We forgot to ask Jackie and Jillie whether they felt somewhat liberated by the absence of boots covering their paws, but they must have. Though they never complain, we had noticed that wearing their boots in these conditions, they too had a tendency to slip back, and without them their stride is more secure, less likely to hamper their normal gait.

What a difference it makes for all of us, making preparations in cold-protective clothing to embark on a winter hike through the woods, in comparison to the summer months when we simply leave the house sponaneously, no preparations other than our hiking boots and their leashes required.