It takes time and patience, but I decided to bake a yeast-raised dessert for tonight. And of the various kinds of such baked products, Chelsea buns (cinnamon rolls) are Irving's favourite. Actually, I prepared two bread doughs; one a sweet type for the buns, the second a savoury dough for flat bread that I'll bake later in the week, and just keep refrigerated until then. I indulge in as many short-cuts as I can and pre-preparing things for various reasons to produce a finished product has become second nature to me.

The bun dough was comprised of milk, honey, eggs, yeast, butter, salt and flour. Easy enough to put together, knead, oil and cover for an hour to allow it to rise. Once that's done, it can be kneaded lightly, rolled out to an oblong, and the surface brushed with melted butter. Over that goes brown sugar, then cinnamon, finally a sprinkling of raisins. The filled dough is rolled like a jellyroll and sliced into portions, then fitted into a prepared baking pan where butter has been melted, brown sugar and cinnamon sprinkled over, and lastly broken walnuts. When the baked product is turned out of its baking dish the bottom becomes the top; glazed and sugary-caramelized.

Set aside to rise again briefly, it bakes in a 375F oven for 40 minutes. The fragrance of the baking buns tells Irving he'll be enjoying them this evening. It also tells us that we're finally free to leave the house to take Jackie and Jillie out for their afternoon hike through the ravine. An utterly irresistible weather day. Right from early morning onward the sky was an unblemished blue, not a cloud to be seen anywhere. So of course the sun beamed down, quickly warming the atmosphere from its overnight 3C to a bearable 10C. And we did our best to ignore the wind.

We came across that same tiny black mop of a miniature Schnauzer. At three months old, he is a bold, inquisitive little fellow who instantly falls in love with everyone. In particular he loves the presence of other dogs and even while some dogs can be pretty rough, after a bit of uncertainty, he gathers his courage and moves right in to mingle among them. Jackie and Jillie have adopted the little creature, named Ebony, with perseverance over his enthusiastic antics.

We met up with quite a few people familiar to us over the years; neighbours and people from the wider community, everyone aware that this wonderful few days -- yesterday and today -- have been sandwiched between days of incessant rain. The forest is still struggling to absorb the excess of the last several days of heavy rain. Deep puddles of rainwater remain yet on the forest floor. We've been warned through the weather forecast that the entire weekend will be one of ongoing rain. 

 

When we arrive back home, it's to a different kind of fragrance, that of chicken soup simmering for tonight's dinner. Jackie and Jillie get their little salads, and I set about grating potatoes and onions for a potato pudding to accompany the chicken breasts steeped in onion, garlic, bell pepper and sliced tomatoes with sweet basil and oregano. Separately, I prepared cauliflower to be roasted and served alongside the chicken.

 And then, out I went for a short while to fill up more compost bags with shorn perennials and some of the flowering plants that have given up their struggle to continue blooming. And finally, while Jackie and Jillie were informing me from the other side of our glass front door how displeased they were with me being out-of-doors and they feeling bereft and abandoned indoors, I planted the last of the daffodil and tulips bulbs.

I'm feeling a bit of a sense of relief that at last I can see myself completing the work of putting the garden to bed in anticipation of winter before frost sets in. When spring arrives and the newly-planted bulbs begin to erupt from the newly-thawed soil, it will feel like a balm over the wound of winter. That sounds pretty silly come to think of it, given that we're out every day in the winter months with few exceptions, admiring the snow-capped landscape and enjoying rambling the snowy forest trails with Jackie and Jillie.