The rabbit came by last night, seating himself on the porch for quite a while, nibbling on peanuts, ignoring the rabbit pellets and the carrots. Just like people, animals have their preferences. We've had the rabbit pellets out long enough to gain the indelible impression they'll sit there forever and eventually rot because no one is interested in them. So Irving took away the container and tossed it all in the compost. 

This morning Irving hauled out his extendable roof rake to clear the snow off the canopy over the deck. The wild wind had actually done a fairly good job of clearing off the snow on two sides of the canopy reflecting the direction of its bellowing, but two other sides were piled high, and since there is more snow in the forecast, it was best not to see what would happen if the canopy got weighed down with more than it could carry. Although it's a metal roof, there's a limit to its structural soundness under the threat of an abundance of snow. All the more so since there may be an intermission of freezing rain to hardpack the existing snow, then more falling over that.

Early morning news was that the combination of municipal police, the OPP, police from other jurisdictions and the RCMP have finally made something in the order of 190 arrests of protesters who adamantly refuse to leave Ottawa's downtown core. A number of big rigs had been moved out yesterday, many of them having been towed away. 

Some protesters are being charged with violently opposing the police. One man threw a bicycle at a horse belonging to a Toronto mounted detachment, and he was charged with attempted injury of a service animal. People hanging around the periphery of the Parliamentary Precinct -- now fenced off, seemingly trying to outwait the police in the hope they would soon disperse with the satisfaction of having done what they were tasked to accomplish, enabling the protesters to move back in -- were summarily arrested.

I remember how shocking it felt to see photographs of police and workmen in Washington erecting tall fences around the Washington Capitol, and thinking, so much for a free and self-respecting country. And now, here we are, our own Parliament buildings closed in with similar fencing and for a similar purpose. While Washington's January 6 event breached the building interior, that didn't happen here; the protesters who loathe Trudeau have ample company nation-wide, but had no intention of breaking into Parliament. There are no lawmakers there, in any event for the time being.

Canada has a prime minister who fostered a self-image of tolerance, equality and full progressive credentials, and loved to portray himself internationally as a much-respected, admired liberal feminist and champion of the underdog. He is in fact, anything but, and a sense of entitled autocracy is what he actually projects. He enjoyed chastising other world leaders, like India's Modi, Russia's Putin, Israel's Bennett, to have more patience, to listen to their people emotively and conscientiously. Something he would never himself stoop to; quite beneath his dignity to exchange civil words with anyone who happens to disagree with him.

As for us, it's been a very good weather day; heavily overcast, windy, but no extremes today. At breakfast time it was -12C but by afternoon  we were looking at -3C, and that's when Jackie and Jillie took us out for an afternoon hike through the ravine. The trails in the forest were much improved over yesterday, and the wind, though robust, was nowhere near as aggressive as yesterday's.