Little wonder Wednesday seemed so blissful when the temperature soared to an unbelievable 11C. It was in fact a record for Ottawa. Even yesterday, the day after, it was 6C, balmy by Ottawa Valley standards in mid-March. On Wednesday there was sun and a light breeze to accompany the warmth, and we felt quite, quite wonderful stalking our way through the forest trails in the ravine. 

 Yesterday, though still relatively mild, it was also a fairly tempestuous day of winds ripping up to 60 kmh (same as Wednesday but at 11C no harm done), blasting even more cones off the pines. The cones now litter the snow everywhere almost as much as they had in late fall of this bumper-crop year. They stand out surprisingly large and starkly dark on top of the diminishing snowpack.

We see ample evidence that the squirrels have taken full advantage of this year's cornucopia of goodies. In wide circles under certain trees lie the remnants of cones, taken meticulously apart by squirrels comfortably ensconced on branches above, extracting the seeds and relinquishing the rest. With such a plenitude of goodies as their main nutrition source there should be no squirrels looking other than sleek and fat this spring. Apart from those that visit our porch daily to feast on other offerings.

Today is a different story. When we'd returned from yesterday afternoon's ramble through the woods the temperature was already falling; clearly half our walk took place in a -4C atmosphere with a cranky wood that blew us back down the street, guiding us home in double-quick time. Today it was the opposite, colder to be sure, with the wind at our backs, shoving us in the direction of the ravine.

But while it's cold again today, with an afternoon of -6C and aggressive wind gusts, it's also sunny. And today, unlike yesterday, the sun accompanied us throughout our trek through the woods in its entirety. We'd been anticipating that since it's Saturday we'd come across the usual week-end spate of 'visitors', but as it happened most of the circuit of trails we took were quiet and we were the only ones about.

Not so earlier, when a family of four young children stopped at the second bridge and just stayed there, necessitating that we too remain where we were some distance away but in sight rather than face the congestion of six people opposite us at the mouth of the bridge. The four children in the family were having the time of their lives. Sliding down snowy inclines beside and under the bridge, clambering along fallen tree trunks, making the most of their opportunity to enjoy themselves. We didn't mind waiting after having climbed a hill to get there and needing the brief rest.

This would be the second such family we came across, the other however, not monopolizing a narrow entry point. We did encounter on the narrowest of trails a group of four teen boys who had, it would appear, never considered the courtesy of stepping aside to allow two elderly people to proceed. Instead they forged determinedly ahead ignoring our oncoming presence, forcing us to move off the trail into deeper snow to free up room for their passage. I did offer a brief and brusque message of social courtesy to deaf and likely indifferent ears.

We went on a little further because we were comfortable and felt like staying out a little longer; good footing and a beautiful day will do that. Plunging back into the lowest parts of the ravine some distance from where we start out, there are creek tributaries and we were surprised to see them still frozen. It's always colder down there, but it was amazing that the previous two days of warm weather hadn't freed them up.