There are times when we wonder if the little rabbit is all right. The carrots Irving puts out for him woefully sitting on the porch, unclaimed. We think he prefers to remain in his den when the weather is really unpleasant. Often, we'll see that the carrots have been nibbled, though frozen, by the rabbit's sharp little teeth, but he'll leave them there, mournfully sitting on the porch. And then it cheers us when the carrot has been claimed and hauled back with him to be eaten at leisure in his home.

Yesterday afternoon and evening, though it was cold, the wind had retreated and the sun was out in the morning into the afternoon. And for a change he came around repeatedly, during daylight hours and in the late evening when we went up to bed. Irving happened to come downstairs briefly at 6:30 am and there was he, on the porch, serenely contemplating life and nibbling at peanuts.

Later, when we came down again for breakfast he was gone and in his place the usual complement of squirrels began arriving, singly and in pairs, some calm, others with their mean little temperaments that reflect their bullying instincts, shooing off their competitors. 

We'd both eaten a bit too much for dinner last night, and consequently neither of us was very hungry for breakfast. So we had oranges and bananas, coffee for Irving, tea for me, and decided that was enough for breakfast. And it will be enough to tide us over until dinnertime. Since we eat only two meals a day, skipping lunch altogether. Something we've done for at least forty years when we decided to dispense with three meals a day. 

We've never felt hungry between our two mealtimes. On the rarest of occasions Irving will have a cup of tea or coffee in the afternoon, but usually he just doesn't feel like having anything until dinnertime. I had started cutting out lunch when our children were small. While they ate their lunch I would be reading to them, both to provide entertainment and to introduce them to the pleasures of reading long before they were able to. It just felt like a nuisance to me to eat at that time. And it seemed an opportune time when they were sitting still for a change, to introduce them to reading.

As for last night's dinner and eating too much; that's a result of my not, after all these years, mastering the art of cooking just enough. I tend to cook more than two people can accommodate at a meal. Not always, but often enough. And since I can't abide wasting food (what mother didn't eat what her children left on their plates?) sometimes wanting to clear the plate, I can eat more than is comfortable. Like yesterday when we had breaded chicken livers, mashed potatoes and roasted acorn squash. I used allspice with the squash and a bit of brown sugar and it was quite good.

Another cold day, after a cold night, with the high for the afternoon chugging up to -8C. But with a fiercely icy wind, even all-day sun didn't compensate for the windchill factor. Though it certainly helped to brighten the landscape in the ravine. The wind blew us up the street to the ravine entrance. The street, by the way, is incredibly sloppy with snow that nature had ladled over the ice covering the road and which municipal plows have failed to clear away.

There's irony in the fact that it's easier to locomote through the forest trails than it is the webwork of community streets through which the ravine runs. Once we escaped the ferocious lashing of the wind after entering the forest we felt more comfortable as we wound our way along the trails, following Jackie and Jillie whose enthusiasm for our daily routes through the forest has not yet waed.