I'm left wondering if that was a sonic boom I heard -- twice -- in the wee morning hours today. Irving heard nothing, he slept right through. But I heard two deeply penetrating booms vibrate through the atmosphere outside the house. They each lasted a few seconds, then quiet. The booms were about ten minutes apart, I'd judge from the fuzz of my sleepy memory. It wasn't just me. Not my imagination, I'm fairly certain.

I glanced over at Jackie and Jillie in the dim light, and they had their sleepy heads up at attention. Out of Jackie's mouth came a series of rapid, short, faint little inner barks. Jillie just outright barked lightly a few times. So whatever it was I heard they too were aware of. I don't think it was an earthquake since there was no detectable movement accompanying the sound, and I'm familiar with what happens when tectonic plates rub against each other. I had plenty of experience in Tokyo years ago, and one very alarming quake years later right in Ottawa; penetratingly loud, alarming, the house swaying.

We haven't encountered anyone yet to ask. Irving has just dismissed it from his mind. Oh wait, we did see Mohindar this morning when he returned a specialized electric drill that he and Imeran wanted to use in installing a video camera. Forgot to mention it then.

We spent a good part of the morning shifting outerwear around. Upstairs in a spare clothes cupboard with light jackets, downstairs the heavy jackets were hauled to take their place. We scrubbed around to find heavy winter mittens and toques and J&J's warmer coats and larger, firmer harnesses. Whatever got put away until next spring had first to be washed, so the laundry room was busy for awhile.

Eventually we got out for our ravine hike in the early afternoon. Just happened to be the coldest day yet this week, flirting with 0C. Low-lying grey clouds, but not much wind. And on the rare occasion the sun briefly shoved aside cloud to have a look down below and see how the puny humans were dealing with the cold.

Yesterday we thought the creek was high and wide, today it was even more so. Yesterday's billowing tide caused by the rain, today's, it seems to us, related partially to rain, but perhaps more to the opening of the sluice gates to the holding ponds further upstream, used as a flood prevention. And so the water surged, billowing and spilling, splashing and spuming over various points where the creek turns and twists on its  trajectory, the water an opaque grey-blue. The colour an improvement over yesterday's mud-brown.

The pools of standing rainwater on the forest floor likely won't be absorbed before frost digs deep into the soil, so all those rain puddles will freeze fairly soon, to eventually melt at winter's conclusion when the accumulated snowpack begins to go. We saw only a few other people out with their dogs this time around. One of whom warned us against elongating our trek this afternoon to include a stretch of trails that dip quite deeply where a tributary of the creek runs and the trails always seem to be deeply saturated.

Then home, to give the puppies their salads. And to marvel once again that despite we gave no indication that we were about to head out to do the weekly food shopping, Jackie and Jillie began to display all the signals of grief over abandonment...