It's quite amazing how much time Jackie spends in the foyer beside the front door, peering out at the world passing by. Actually, it's Jillie who does more of the 'world passing by' visualizing; she is attuned to people walking by with their leashed dogs, seeming to sense their presence long before they come into view, at a distance, and then her barks alert Jackie who rushes over so they can indulge in a satisfying duo of hysterical barking.

Jackie is more given to standing for prolonged periods of time with a specific purpose in mind; to watch the neighbourhood squirrels come by in search of their daily treats. While I'm still in bed first thing in the indecently-early morning, I can smell toast downstairs in the kitchen, deliciously wafting up to my appreciative nostrils. It's my husband who wakes earlier than me, tiptoes downstairs and begins to fill up a large bowl with cubed, toasted bread. To which he invariably adds unsalted soda crackers he buys for the same purpose.

The crackers are always taken first, the bread left for after by the discriminating wildlife. Birds and squirrels in the morning, raccoons and skunks in the evening hours. They're all wonderfully efficient
at scooping up the helpings, leaving the porch clear of any offerings by the time they're done with it all. There's the morning deposits, the late afternoon deposits and the midnight offerings, and then it starts all over again every morning.

When we indulge in our daily hikes through the forest trails we often wonder which among the squirrels we may come across visit us during the day. And it's a certainty that we see more raccoons on our porch than we ever do in the ravine, where they tend to be more secretive about their presence. As for the skunks, we can only recall once coming across a little fellow about three decades ago, other than the times we enjoy seeing them on the porch.

I keep telling my husband they're able to fend for themselves now that the earth is no longer clamped down tight with accumulated winter snow and ice. He keeps muttering 'not yet'. It's possible that he and Jackie have a secret pact. And in the meanwhile, Jackie keeps his vigil at the front door, faithful to his mission to protect us from the ravages of the wildlife.

We've been having some really peculiar weather lately. No lack of sun, but it's been abnormally cold, still slipping below freezing at night, and then nudging up to the low digits by afternoon. It has also invariably been very windy, so that the cold and the wind together become a harsh accompaniment to the beneficent effect of the spring sun beaming down on us. As with the previous three days, today gave us snow flurries alternately with sun and wind. We also had a brief episode of snow pebbles, smaller than hail, flecking the sky and accumulating on surfaces. But the sun made quick work of it.

In the ravine we continue to avoid the holdout patches of icy trails, reversing the usual trajectory of our choice of trail networks. Not much sign yet of anything exciting erupting from the forest floor; it will take time, but our eyes are keenly fixed for any 'surprises' that might appear, apart from the glimpse we had of an early coltsfoot appearance.

The forest floor is acting like a magnet for our two little dogs' noses as their olfactory senses struggle with the overload of odour sensations flooding them.  The landscape looks drab and uninteresting for the time being, as we await the anticipated presence of spring features of the forest. The Mourning Cloaks that we had seen last week had a setback with the re-emergence of 'winter' when we took a turn for icier temperatures, but they'll be back in numbers soon, we hope.