The wind lashed our faces as we walked up the street following Jackie and Jillie toward the ravine. A blustery, cold day, but we were dressed for it. A day dimly lit from the sky above encased once again in streaked grey clouds. Once we entered the ravine and clambered down into the forest, the wind shifted much higher as it rocked the spires of tree trunks high above in the forest canopy. 

Each morning when we awake, we hope to see a nice smooth layer of new snow fallen overnight covering the landscape. Obviously a trick of our subconscious knocking at the door of familiarity. At this time of year that's what should be happening, but hasn't been. Not yet, in any event, though it should be. So when we walk downstairs and look expectantly out the front door what taunts our eyes is the same old grim dark aspect of a desiccated garden, naked trees and a monochromatic dark grey landscape.

The winter equinox is a few weeks off yet, there's ample time for the weather to cooperate with our expectations. And this year, the stars align to produce what has been named a 'Christmas star'. A modern-day version of the bright star seen in the heavens some several millennia ago on the auspicious occasion of the birth of a Jewish child who would become a philosopher-king, an anointed messenger of the Almighty.

Here, if we're fortunate and the sky clears this evening we may see the Perseids, the Geminid meteor shower destined for our entertainment and awe at the sight of shooting stars. When our children were young and our oldest son was captured by astronomy he and I would sometimes go out into the backyard at night, lay out on deck chairs and watch for shooting stars. Occasionally we might see a satellite moving majestically across the sky. 

Anticipating that yesterday's all-day freezing rain event would have most surely melted whatever was left of the snow in the ravine, we made certain to pull cleats over our boots for traction on what we anticipated would be slippery trails. Our morning temperature was above freezing, allowing the precipitation that fell in the morning to sidestep snow and fall as rain, to our disgust. Surprisingly, the sun poked briefly around and through a few cracks in the armour of the steely clouds, but failed to assert a permanent presence.

 

While the wind moaned and groaned through the forest canopy, the temperature had dropped past freezing and the muck that resulted on the trails from all the rain of the previous day began to freeze and we soon realized that ample ice covered parts of the trail system, and were glad we'd worn cleats. Not so much on the ascents but on the descents, beyond useful.

 

We came across a few other people and dogs, mostly regulars, but for the most part the casual hikers who had been around and about in earlier months, trying to regain some equilibrium in a bid for normalcy in their lives -- valuing an opportunity for some fresh air and exercise, fed up with social distancing requirements -- have for the most part disappeared. 

 

One young man we've known for quite a while whose manner of speech always makes me think of a Tennessean but who isn't, and who likes to stand around chatting on those occasions when we meet, was out with his arthritic, sensible old black Labrador. Jackie and Jillie know this dog, so accept its close proximity, keeping their obnoxious behaviour to a minimum, just as the dog knows our two and following an initial greeting, more or less ignores them in preference to resting his painful old bones.