On our way up the street heading toward the ravine this afternoon, we saw one of our neighbours putting up Coloured lights above his garage. The usual commiseration; weather always tends to be miserable when it comes time to pasting !colour!, 'lights!, !joy! onto the domestic landscape in anticipation of Christmas. Bob just grinned and shrugged. Irving and he have known one another for the last fifty years.

Bob had gone straight from university to the ranks of officers in the federal department of Customs & Excise, and Irving was by then a senior officer who didn't stick around but went on to other government departments in his ascending career. Bob had stayed with the department and he retired several years ago. When we moved into our current house 30 years ago, we discovered Bob and his family living up and across the street from us.

 

 

 Bob wanted to ask Irving about how to differentiate between ivory and bone. His wife had been left an antique in her aunt's will, a turn-of-the-century Mah Jongg set. Ivory is now prohibited entry in many countries in reaction to the crisis of impacting elephants being slaughtered for their tusks in the dark underworld of illicit smuggling. Bob had been informed by an expert that the pieces in the gaming set he thought were ivory were actually bone. At Customs & Excise, Irving was an expert on art and antiques and wrote rulings that stand today. He does have sound, deep knowledge in both spheres, and he told Bob the pieces were likely bone.

 

The thermometer put us right at freezing, but there was no wind, though the sky was deep in overcast. We anticipated, given the last several nights of sub-zero temperatures, that frost would begin to set into the ground, but once we gained the forest trails we noted they were fully as wet and slushy as the day before. And we sighed. It takes forever to clean off Jackie's and Jillie's little paws these days. It's as though they stepped in indelible India ink.

 

 

Yesterday's raw atmosphere -- and a Friday at that -- had brought out many more people than today's relatively more benign day, one without rain true, but small snow squalls. It was a peaceful stroll for all of us. The remaining colours in the ravine were beautifully highlighted by the dim, almost-dusk prevailing light. There is always plenty of interest for Jackie and Jillie picking up messages from other dogs as they sniff and snuffle about. 

 

 

Where a small grove of old wild apple trees still flourish -- and this summer bore bumper crops which accustomed us to picking the small sweet-and-sour apples in late summer and early fall for nibbles for us and for Jackie and Jillie -- under their outspread branches lie hundreds of their tiny offcast apples and we wondered whether many are eaten by local wildlife. They'll lie deep in snow overwinter, and when spring melt reveals them they often still look edible.

 

On our way back, out of the ravine and on the street heading for home, Bob was waiting in his garage to 'catch' us, to show Irving Louise's Mah Jongg set. It bore no resemblance to ours which is in a finely finished and fitted wooden box with drawers and brasses; theirs is of worn cardboard in understandably awful shape, but Irving was able to show Bob what distinguishes bone from ivory. 

 

Once we cleaned up the puppies and I chopped up their little vegetable salad treat, I went back out to clean up the fallen leaves for the final time. Dan, our wonderful next-door neighbour was busy himself, putting up what will be eventually an entire panoply of Christmas decorations. Irving had already raked up and disposed of the bulk of all the fallen foliage, I was just finishing up the last of the fallen leaves. 

 

Irving drove out to Home Depot for some hardware he wanted to pick up. When I finished the raking, I put down newspapers on the other half of the garage matching the half Irving had done the day before to catch the oil dripping off the undercarriage of the truck. When he returned from his shopping expedition he would find paper down to do the same with the oiltrellled car.

 

Jackie and Jillie smothered me with frantic kisses, so glad I had managed to escape the danger that lurks everywhere they're not around to protect us. I put on the gas fireplace and everything seemed warm and snug. 

 

When Irving returned he brought with him a Santa Claus melon, two dozen navel oranges, bought elsewhere than Home Depot; he always takes the opportunity when he's out to drop by FarmBoy. At Home Depot he picked up the hardware fittings he had wanted. And a crystal chandelier he planned to hang in the family room. A surprise for me. I've been noting the lack of bright light there despite a proliferation of floor and table lamps.