Thinking ahead sometimes has its benefits. I do that for example when I prepare a bread dough on Friday morning and refrigerate it for later use during the week. So that when I made a lentil-vegetable soup for last night's dinner, I also baked cheese croissants to accompany the hot, thick, hearty soup. A bit of a time-saver, since all I had to do was withdraw the waiting bread dough and work it into croissants.

In the same spirit when I cooked a pot of rice Friday evening to serve as a base for the stewed chicken we had, I made enough to set aside a cup of the cooked rice and refrigerate it. And this morning I withdrew the rice from the refrigerator and prepared a rice pudding for breakfast as something just a little different. We had a very cold night last night when the temperature dipped to a frosty -19C. When we came down for breakfast it had risen to -11C.

So, the rice pudding was just perfect. I placed the cooked rice into a pot, added 1-1/2 cups of milk I'd heated in the microwave, along with 1/4 tsp. cinnamon, 2 tbsp. brown sugar and 2/3 cup of Sultana raisins. Then I left the rice to simmer for a half-hour while we went back upstairs to shower before breakfast. Rice absorbs all the liquid you can give it. We enjoyed it hot, pouring cold milk over it at the table, a delicate taste-treat.

In the afternoon when the temperature had risen to -4C under a cloudy sky, we went off for our trot through the ravine with Jackie and Jillie. Our driveway remains a thick sheet of ice, though much of the ice on the street has begun to melt finally. The season's snowpack is piled high on people's lawns and it seems thinking about it that when the weather finally begins to warm toward spring it'll take forever to melt. It always seems that way, but it actually doesn't take that long. By April (we hope) we'll see green grass.

This past week's extremely cold days has finally got to the creek. It's still completely open but ice is beginning to form once more and clearly with another few days of the sub-zero weather we've had foisted on us by disgruntled old man winter it would freeze over completely again. Overcast and windy unlike yesterday's sunny and windy, so no robins about today, though we heard the percussion-work of a Hairy woodpecker.

There was a number of other people out that we encountered here and there, and their dogs; the people somewhat familiar to us and the dogs to Jackie and Jillie. One little terrier mix called Nemo, an irrepressible little bundle of energy, came bounding up a hill to greet Jackie and Jillie and they had a little reunion; hadn't seen one another in weeks.

And later a miniature Schnauzer, one of a pair, ran helter-skelter excitedly up another trail, after spotting our two, to enjoy a little confab together, everyone in good spirits enjoying the atmosphere, the opportunity and the communal benefit of the landscape of an unspoiled wooded ravine running through a community once thought of as a suburb of the capital city, now absorbed by it.

According to the weather forecast, today will be the last of the frigid days of expiring winter. (That gets filed under 'I'll believe it when I see/experience it'.) For the coming week we should be in approaching-spring territory, with temperatures rising to 6C and more. But this is the Ottawa Valley of eastern Ontario and we're only in March, the most uncertain, sometimes tempestuous of all months when anything can happen, and usually does. We'll wait for it.