There was thick white hoarfrost on all the roofs this morning. A symptom of just how cold it has been the last few nights, last night nudging -9C. The snow that fell several days back still lingers in streaks in the backyard and in the forest. It doesn't yet quite look like winter, but it's beginning to feel like winter. Frosty cold is very convincing. The presence of any kind of wind, even light breezes, makes the cold seem all that more acute since wind has a habit of driving frigid air icily into unprotected areas. Convincingly enough that I zip my outerwear up right to my chin before embarking into the out-of-doors.

I've taken lately to snapping small carrots into pieces and tossing them at a central point in the back garden lately. When I look later on in the day they're usually gone. If not within several hours then by the following morning. I leave them where I last saw the rabbit, frozen to that very spot, unmoving, in the certainty that if there was no movement, there would be no discovery.

 

This morning Jackie and Jillie sniffed about that area avid to work out why it casts an odour that may or may not perplex them. Invariably, when I head out with them to the backyard, the moment I slide the glass door aside they whip through the threshold, down the deck stairs and scatter -- one heading left the other right -- behind the garden sheds.

I can hardly recognize the soil in the garden beds now. It's tinged with frost and crumbly, as though someone has taken a rake to the frozen soil, hacking and turning it over. The clear demarcation between the beds and the grass beyond no longer looks as defined. Oncoming winter has created a sense of unity as though the disparate areas of the backyard are girding themselves simultaneously for all that winter will throw at them.

 

Jackie and Jillie have no intention of lingering longer than it takes to scout out all the nooks and crannies of the backyard, do their urgent business, then zip back up the stairs to the deck, to stand expectantly at the doors that refuse to obey them until I climb the stairs and oblige. 

Later in the afternoon when the temperature pumped itself up to -3C, we parted with the warmth and comfort of the house when Irving returned from his shopping expedition. He had gone out for a newspaper since the two we subscribe to don't publish on Sunday, and dropped by Pet Smart to return the two halters and winter coats we had bought there, but which turned out to be hopelessly ill designed; difficult to put on, and poor fitting.

He dropped by Farm Boy briefly to pick up some hot smoked salmon. He'll have it with the whole-wheat cheese flatbread I'm baking, after we have a first course of hot, flavourful tomato-lentil soup, now bubbling on the stove. He also happened to drop by another shop to see if they had any men's lined jeans, but no luck. He did get himself several undershirts. And because he's a shopaholic and just cannot resist buying things, he bought a cardigan and three sweaters for me. Makes no difference how often I urge him not to buy things for me, he loves bringing things home, and slowly one after the other, revealing them to me. I can't complain about his taste. It's just that I don't really need anything.

 

Once in the ravine, we felt the forest floor frozen hard and crisp under our boots. As long as the trails are dry, Jackie and Jillie can take the cold until it gets below -6C and there's snow on the ground. That won't be for another little while yet before we have to start fitting little booties on their paws for protection from the cold. 

 

We're continually surprised by the dim, dusky look of the forest interior, though after all this time we should be used to it. It's different now, though, true dusk falls earlier and it's a looming, heavier shade of dusk, a slow creeping toward the dark of night before night even realizes it's time to disrupt day. We're moving steadily toward the shortest day of the year, just a month away, with the calendar entrance of winter.