It's one of those thankfully rare, raw weather days. The kind of day that tells you it's best to remain at home. Heavy rain from morning to night. A few degrees cooler and we'd have a bouffant white comforter over the landscape. But no, below freezing temperatures give us rain, and a lot of it. We said goodbye to our accumulated snow and ice a week ago. Now the trails in the ravine are certain to be thick in mush. 

That's a conjecture born of long familiarity with the forest in all seasons and all conditions. Could be if the rain had let up a bit we'd have ventured out with Jackie and Jillie, but it did not. And so we did not. Not that they particularly care, as long as their vegetable salad isn't forgotten. They had it earlier than usual this afternoon. Then back to their snooze again.

The house is dark and has been from the earliest hours today. The kind of atmosphere that makes you feel like staying in bed and snuggling up for the duration. But there is always something that needs to be done, and Irving had a morning appointment to take the car in for winter-driving rustproofing. It took him a month to make the appointment; this is the time of year those kind of services are swamped with calls.

While  he was out, waiting for the job to be completed, he crossed the street to one of the area big box stores. Where he bought a set of fleecy sheets for our bed, to help keep us warm this winter. He also had a shopping bag full of sweaters; crew neck, cowl neck, placket, and turtle neck. For me. Size small that always looks kind of big. But they're attractive, soft and comfortable looking, and he always thinks of me.

After I cleaned up the kitchen I tackled the bathrooms for their twice-weekly deep cleaning. And since it was obvious we weren't going anywhere for a good long hike with Jackie and Jillie, I thought it was the perfect time to wash the basement floors. That isn't done very often, and my right knee is now completely healed from that last fall I had.

We're early settling down to relax, Irving and me, and that pleases Jackie and Jillie immensely. They relax right along with and alongside us. Before us, a blazing fireplace. We'll have a good long walk with the puppies tomorrow. 

 

Nature is truly the original drama queen. Today is the penultimate day of November 2022. Once it's gone it will never return. It awaits the arrival of tomorrow. And tomorrow will be a rather inconvenient weather day, heralding the imminent entrance of December, with another three weeks to go before winter's official arrival. We thought, back a week and more ago that winter had arrived early. We already had a sizeable initial snowpack, the weather was unseasonably cold and windy and we readied ourselves for a cold and snowy winter.

 We've gone backward, however, with December following a day abnormally mild at 9C, complete with heavy rain. A blah day in the works for tomorrow, in other words. So we're being put through the weather-wringer, a petulant display by Mother Nature, obviously fed up with all the climate change complaints. She is going out of her way to impress upon us mere humans that she's in command here, not us.

 

Our morning began with a brief absence from home, leaving Jackie and Jillie in mourning mode, as we drove to the supermarket to get our weekly shopping done. Last week we were later than usual doing the shopping, timing it to synchronize with taking Jackie and Jillie to the groomers. The timing is just right; we leave them for an hour-and-a-half and that's about as long as it takes to get the shopping done. We were slightly taken aback that there were so many people crowding the supermarket.

Today, hours earlier, the store was almost equally crowded. Enough so, that from time to time patience must be exercised to wait while someone monopolizes a shelving section you're interested in, or positions their shopping cart injudiciously in a manner so as to make it impossible to reach a product that is part of your usual shopping list. 

 

Frozen turkeys were out n a large refrigerated case and a group of shoppers milled about the section where they lay, examining the birds for size and price. Local cranberries were on sale, and for the first time I can remember, shelled Brazil nuts. Lettuce, because of the poor weather conditions in California along with infected crops that has led to a shortage, is now an astronomical price. We'd heard that 3 packaged heads of Romaine hearts were priced at an astonishing $16. Today they were priced at $8.99. But there was Ontario greenhouse-grown Boston lettuce in a clamshell, for a mere $2.95. Lettuce just happens to be the one fresh vegetable I could readily forego.

We left for our afternoon hike through the woods with Jackie and Jillie just a few minutes after three. As we emerged from the house, Jillie saw a dog on the street she's familiar with and began barking. Almost immediately, another dog burst on the scene, one we're quite familiar with from the ravine. And we wondered why on earth he was racing about off leash, his person nowhere in sight.

As we made our way back up the street we came across that person just emerging from the ravine in quite a hurry, and she told us that while they were on their hike, not far from the street, her dog heard Jillie barking, and linking her bark to the treats Irving always hands out, he broke away and raced for the street to look for cookie treats. And was duly rewarded.

As relatively early as it was in the afternoon, a dense, low cloud cover ensured that as soon as we entered the forest we were immediately engulfed in low light, dusk already setting in at a few minutes after three. By the time we exited the forest trails just over an hour later, dusk was giving way to the dark of early night. Without the relieving aspect of a snow cover, it's pretty hard to take. When we looked up toward the sky we were surprised to see that the clouds had moved out and the moon had moved in.

The east-facing corner of the house was flooded with light this morning, as sunbeams poured through the kitty-cornered sets of windows, illuminating not only that room but the hallway behind it. Our bedroom would only light up in the afternoon and nor would the bedrooms at the front of the house host the full brightness of the risen sun. That corner room that Irving transformed into a library by building shelving from floor to ceiling, always catches the early morning sun, always makes me think we'd left the light on, overnight.

Irving listens to the news early morning in bed with one of his little transistor radios and earbuds. As much to hear the weather as to pick up what's new in the news. So he can whisper it all in my ear as I begin to stir and refuse to wake. The sun, he told me, would last until just after noon, and then clouds would close in and rain would begin sometime later and as the temperature began to drop, it would turn to snow.

That meant to make the most of the day and the prevailing early-day sun, we would best head off to the ravine with Jackie and Jillie soon after breakfast. Breakfast, needless to say, is late on a Sunday morning. It takes some time to prepare and we luxuriate over it, taking our time reading the newspapers. The melon we had wasn't as sweet as the summer varieties, and I peeled three bananas just beginning to ripen and discovered all three were rotted through the middle. Frost got to them, Irving thought. They looked fine before I took the peel off. 

We had French toast, and so did Jackie and Jillie as a special treat after their own breakfast. I went back upstairs to make up our bed, assemble all the towels from the bathroom, from the powder room, along with tea towels that comprise the laundry on a Sunday. I disassembled the top of the stove burners and stuck the pieces into the dishwasher along with breakfast dishes and pans. And then off we went to the ravine.

Milder even than yesterday, since there was not even a whisper of wind. The snow on the hillsides that could be seen yesterday was now melted. Only some ice remained on some parts of the trail network. But the sun was out full blast, lighting up the atmosphere, the footing was good and we followed Jackie and Jillie along the trails stopping when they did, continuing on when they did. A glorious weather day, but not quite as picturesque as when successive snowfalls have created a snowpack on the forest floor, and newfallen snow embroiders tree branches. 

On our return home, I continued my housework, and Irving went out on a few errands. He felt like having hot smoked salmon with the soup and croissants I'd be preparing for dinner this evening. And he planned to get a copy of a different newspaper because I had cancelled our subscription to a local newspaper we'd been receiving for about 40 years, just fed up with its journalists and the paper's focus neither of us cared for, any longer.

While he was out, Irving dropped by the library again. He had acquired some detective novels for himself along with a James Herriot book I'm sure we'd read before. When we were just kids 70 years ago we belonged to a 'book-of-the-month club and used to get the Herriot books, along with Elliot Mason novels and so many others we enjoyed reading. 

Today he brought back a book for me by one of my favourite writers, Gabriel Garcia Marquez. And a book about one of Shackleton's voyages in the Endurance, a subject we're both fascinated by and have often read about. And the third was by Simon Winchester, titled 'The Professor and the Madman', about the word-compilation in the making of the Oxford English Dictionary. When it was discovered that the man from whom the most erudite and prolific words and meanings had been received was a lunatic asylum inmate.

Irving headed right back outside, this time to the backyard. To cover the Three Graces sculpture; it's been in place there for almost 30 years and extreme weather exposure is beginning to ravage it. He also meant to fill the tires of the snow thrower, but first had to remove the chains, and he ran into some complications, so he was out there quite some time. He plans to be prepared for the inevitable.

There's always some point during these cold winter months when the weather pattern trends briefly backward. But that time doesn't usually arrive for us until January, when the snowpack has accumulated to great depths and the anomalous warmer period of up to a week creates a thaw, diminishing the depth of the snowpack. In this instance, where we're still in November, not much of a snowpack has accumulated, and it's fast melting under the onslaught of several days of below-zero temperatures giving us freezing rain and rain rather than snow.

On the cusp of freezing, it still feels pretty cold, given wind and the dampness that comes with heavily overcast days like today. Jackie and Jillie are less likely to balk at going out to the backyard when it's snowing than they are with rain. So there's always their sentiments to contend with. This morning when they went out before breakfast we'd had a night of -3C, some freezing rain followed by rain, and the backyard was sopping, though still carrying snow.

I decided I'd bake light and airy cupcakes today, coconut cupcakes, one of our favourites. They're topped with raspberry jam and coconut so they're quite temptingly colourful on presentation.  The pairing of coconut and raspberry jam is irresistible, in any event, supported by its lovely fragrance. I love it when Irving passes through the kitchen, inhales the fragrances and aromas wafting through, expresses his anticipation and hugs me.

When we were both finished with our shared housework it was time to head out to the ravine. Although there's still snow and ice left on the forest floor, we can see the soil in places and it's clear that by the time this weekend will have passed, so too will the snow. But it's early days yet in this winter season and it'll all be quickly replaced. It's just that, in the interim, we're confronted with slick, slippery clay in some trail areas.

One of our hiking friends told us he'd been out earlier in the day for a first early hike, and although he was wearing cleats over his boots he had a devil of a time ascending and descending the hills, unable to get good grips because the transition between the overnight freeze and the milder incoming temperatures had created an ice rink in there. By the time we were on the trails they had become firmly slushy, and our grip on that surface was fine with our cleats. We even saw Jackie and Jillie slipping about on the hillsides. They make no complaints about anything.

When we arrived back home it was to the aroma of a chicken soup simmering on the stove. Last night we'd had salmon and oven-baked potato chips, along with a vegetable salad prefacing the main course. Dessert yesterday was pomegranate seeds scattered over a layer of plain  yoghurt, to more or less 'cleanse our palates'.

Tonight features the same-old, same-old (with some variations on the theme) chicken dinner for
Friday night. In the tradition of Jewish cuisine, a cultural playbook that is timeless whether  you're secular or a religious Jew, we tend to fall back on the familiar; what our mothers and their mothers before them prepared for their families on Friday evenings.

 

We're in a run of slightly milder days for the rest of the week. It's still cold enough, we figure, to keep putting their heavy winter jackets on Jackie and Jillie, along with their boots. Because it's also damp, despite the absence of wind the past few days, it still seems cold enough once we're out in the woods. Granted, the  temperature in the ravine tends to be slightly colder than out at street level, in any event. And it's easier to whip off their boots on our return home rather than repeatedly washing their little paws from grit and dirt. Which kind of balances the nuisance of putting them on to begin with.

 

 

At this rate, counting on above freezing temperatures and possibly freezing rain on the weekend, it's possible the snow cover laid down in the last few weeks will melt. And then we'll start acquiring another snowpack base in short order, all over again. At least the sun was out all day, not merely dropping by briefly in the morning, but shining brilliantly throughout the day. Wan warmth and brilliance is an improvement over continuing days of heavy cloud cover.

 

 

The weather, cold and damp, requires a greater energy burn just to keep warm and energetic on these days, so comfort meals like the one last night is justified. We need to stoke the furnace of our bodies to feel comfortable these days, and a beef stew served over buckwheat groats, alongside green beans, fit the bill very nicely. For tonight we'll have a side of salmon, along with oven-'fried' potato chips and a fresh, colourful vegetable salad. I spent some time gathering/separating the seeds of a pomegranate to sprinkle over yoghurt for dessert. Bright red jewels on a bed of snow.

 

Unlike yesterday's hike through the woods, there were scant few other people out this afternoon; a factor of time of day for many people, we imagine. Instead of wiping out Irving's giveaway cookie collection as occurred yesterday with so many dogs hustling over for their due, only Dozer showed up today. We've known him since he was a puppy. And then along came Charley, patiently waiting for Irving to commence dispensing.

 

On our return home, since it was still early in the afternoon, Irving decided to take himself off to the library. It's been almost three years, since its initial COVID-lockdown closing and the prolonged and slow resumption of normal library hours and activities, and in all that time he hadn't yet returned. So off he went to look about. And was surprised when one of the librarians recognized him after such a long absence.

 

We used to take out videos, but no longer do. And since we enjoy reading books at our own leisure, sometimes tending to several at a time, the two-week takeaway seems to hamper our enjoyment. So Irving heads straight for the room set aside operated by 'friends of the library' for the sale of library de-acquisitions. He brought back several books on antiques, one of herbs and cooking with them, another by John Bolton, and we can both enjoy reading them at our leisure.

 

In his absence, I called my sister for a lengthy conversation. She's younger than me, but in complicated  health. Her 'reading' is done through talking books sent to her by the CNIB on loan. She doesn't get out much anymore because she can no longer walk without pain, and my brother-in-law, a Holocaust survivor, gradually has taken to doing the house-keeping and the cooking. We bring one another up-to-date on family news and discuss the wider news, as well as reminiscing about our younger days, about our parents, about their trials and tribulations in life.

 

We've been seeing an odd pattern lately where early in the morning the sun is up and out, the house bathed in brilliance and then seemingly abruptly, it's gone. Clouds have moved in, giving the appearance of a snowy day, but it isn't until evening that the clouds finally let loose with flurries, nothing more. So that by mid-morning and on into the afternoon the day has decided to be densely cloudy. Cloudy days mean higher temperatures, while clear, sunny days bring colder temperatures.

We seem to be involved in a warmer trend now, after a week of -5C. Under that cloudy sky it was 2C by the time we set out for the ravine with Jackie and Jillie today. But despite the thermometer's assurance it was also damp and that made the cold much more icy feeling. So full regalia was in order for the puppies. All the more so that they've just been shed of their hair at the groomer's. Their grooming did make putting their tiny boots on a bit easier. They both head directly for the  deepest parts of the snow cover, so the boots have their distinct purpose.

 

The first thing Irving always does before we embark on a forest hike is to ensure that his cookie bag has been well packed, in anticipation of demands from the members of his ravine cookie club. There are days when demand is low and not many dogs are around, and then there are days when we keep coming across familiar dogs in abundance. Some walking sedately with their humans then trot over to Irving the dispenser of goodies. And others that have heard Jillie's tell-tale barks and speed halfway across the ravine, temporarily abandoning their companions for the urgent work of presenting themselves as candidates for cookie hand-outs.

We met a few dogs new to our acquaintance today. One fellow we'd never come across before, was out with a 14-month-old Retriever whom he was training to commands, using a colourful play-stick to toss into the forest interior, awaiting the dog's return with it. The companion dog to the Retriever was a tiny Maltese terrier, small enough to make Jackie and Jillie seem fairly outsized. The Maltese was bold and frisky and absolutely adorable.

 

 

There were so many dogs seeking Irving out today that his cookie store was wiped right out. He ended up giving our own puppies' tiny cookies in  handsfull instead of the usual big-dog cookies, to the late-comers. We actually dread running out of offerings because the dogs are so disappointed and disbelieving that there are no cookies left. We just made it through with the whisker of luck today. 

 

We had set out for our hike through the forest this afternoon at 3:40 p.m. and even then dusk was already in evidence. By the time we completed our circuit including stopping to talk now and again with some of our friends, darkness had fallen. Without the presence of snow covering the forest floor the ambience would have been even more night-like. As it was, the dark veil of night seemed light in intensity in comparison to its presentation once back at home, looking out from the inside of the house. And we're still a month from December 21. 

Last night's dinner of eggplant casserole was so good that dinner tonight called for something similar but not quite the same. The sumptuous, belly-warming richness of the tomatoes, cheese and mushrooms smothering the eggplant slices, hot-spiced just right for the critical palate makes me feel we could eat it far more often, and we will.

For today, we've got a combination of garlic, onion, jalapeno pepper, olive oil and beef cubes to which was added mushrooms, carrots and tiny golden potatoes in a gravy. We're having buckwheat groats as a base for the stew, Frenched green beans alongside, and sweet little pear slices from Portugal for dessert. Jackie and Jillie, as is usual, will offer themselves to share in the fragrant bounty, as they always do.

There, it's done, all done now. Time to rest. The puppies' bedding, sweaters, towels, halters and collars have been washed. Because they've been at the groomer's. So they've been washed too, along with having had a manicure and a shave. And they're delighted to be back home. While they were being groomed, we did the food shopping. And now that's all done, too.

It worked out very well, time-wise. But for the fact that when we usually do the shopping it's early morning and the supermarket has few people around and about. This time, at 2:00 pm the store was crowded with people, and we aren't now accustomed to that. And nor do we quite appreciate it. It will be a relief to return back to our usual early morning shopping time, far fewer people in circulation. And those that do show up mostly do so masked.

Jackie and Jillie love sniffing around the groceries as we bring them in from the car. They know we wouldn't bring all that food into the house without treating them, and so they had yogurt and salad. Thus reassured that everything has returned to normal, they decided on a bit of play and then a well-earned rest.

We'd gone out earlier in the day, before their appointment, for our ravine hike. Cold and damp, but the wind that has been howling through the trees the last several days -- yesterday gusts to 50 kmh -- has spent itself. It was, though, overcast, so no random warming rays to make it through the forest canopy today. What we did see was scads of litter brought down by the wind from the trees; little bits of broken branches, a lot of cones and pieces of bark.

We scarcely had time to change out of our rough hiking clothing, and prepare Jackie and Jillie, before it was time to leave for their appointment. Usually when we're ready to leave the house both of them are at the door, pleading with us to take them with us. Today when we called Jillie over she just ignored us, while Jackie trotted anxiously around, waiting to go.

Hours later, preparing dinner, they kept visiting me as I cut up vegetables for an eggplant, tomato, mushroom and cheese casserole.  They feel entitled, any time they hear a knife on a cutting board to bits of whatever I'm working with. On this occasion, tomato and cheese did the trick. 

It feels so good whenever we've done the shopping and the fruit and vegetable drawers in the refrigerator are brimming, tempting and ready for use, challenging me to think of what I'd like to do with all those ingredients.  When it's a casserole, like today's dinner, I can just slip it into the oven and let it prepare itself while the aroma wafts around the house.

Irving put the fireplace on and the family room is comfortable both to the eye and to our cold-sensitive feelings. We could stamp 'perfect' on this day for getting things done efficiently and preparing to relax. That's something Jackie and Jillie are familiar with and wildly enthusiastic about.

 

The first order of business this morning was to grip shovels and clear the newfallen snow off the backyard pathways for Jackie and Jillie. They were anxious to get outside themselves. Hard to tell whether to do their morning business or to frolic in the snow. When it rains nothing will induce them to willingly head for the outside. When it snows !wow, let us out there! So as we slipped through the glass doors this morning to do the shovelling prior to letting them out, they slipped through as well.

 

And began dashing about dementedly all over the place. So much for keeping them from acquiring a thick coating of fresh snow. Irving took them back in when they had depleted their store of overnight bodily warmth from sleep, and began to feel the -4C and wind, while I stayed out shovelling. Because it just felt so good. Then he came back out and took over where I left off. Leaving me to set the table for breakfast and him to do a more thorough job of clearing the paths.

Nothing short of invigorating. Actually, for all of  us. The bracing cold, fresh air, the swinging of arms with shovels-full of snow, watching it pour in slow motion like a treasure trove of priceless gems from the shovel. It wasn't a heavy snow. Light and fluffy, about seven centimetres. The wind kept blowing it back at us, huffing and puffing with indignation that we were assuming its job.

 

Because it's Sunday, and they can smell what's on the stove, the puppies anticipated treats on top of the yogurt, kibble, honeydew and chicken they enjoyed for breakfast. Despite all that, it was the little cut-up bits of French toast and sausages they were looking forward to. Which led inevitably to a comfortable snooze for them while we took our time with our own breakfast.

 

The temperature kept dropping, the wind grew even more riotous, aggressively sweeping snow off surfaces to swish it in opaque waves here and there, doing its best to fill in the backyard walkways again. By the time we were ready to get out to the ravine for an afternoon hike, it was apparent that the intermediate-weight jackets Jackie and Jillie were wearing lately wouldn't be enough to keep the comfortable. So out came the winter-weight jackets, along with their sturdier halters. 

 

And out came the fresh batch of tiny rubber winter boots Irving had bought just a few days earlier. They'd be put to good use today.  And we'd be taking care to dress to beat the wind exacerbating the frigid air ourselves. We'd had some sunshine earlier in the day, then it became partially overcast again. We didn't get out until four because I had quite a few things to get done beforehand.

We saw few other people and dogs out this afternoon. But it was obvious that throughout the course of the day enough people from the community had come out to firm up the trails very nicely, for they were well trodden underfoot. The trees stand like dark silent sentries against the backdrop of sky and snow. The new, overnight snow ow mostly filtered off the forest canopy thanks to the wind. But at this time of day the setting sun throws its brilliant fire over the horizon, translated into puffy pink clouds adrift on a clear blue sky.

 

We were right royally entertained when a dog we've been seeing on occasion with a fetish for sticks approaching the size of logs came by yet again with a thick, snow-encrusted part of a fallen branch in his mouth. Taking up enough width on the trail that I would have been smacked with one end of the stick had I not moved aside in time. It's a scene so comical you just find your eyes glued to the dog's determination to take possession of a stick too large for its mouth, but willing to struggle mightily to possess it.

He dropped it every now and again to rest his challenged jaws, then picked it up again to resume his satisfying passage through the forest on trails littered with detritus fallen from surrounding trees at the insistence of the wind.

We move with a bit more alacrity in these icy temperatures, made all the more so when frenzied winds have joined forces with the cold. Not Jackie and Jillie necessarily, but we two certainly do. Just as well we had taken special precautions against the conditions, to ensure we would be comfortable while out in the great wild yonder. And we were.

We're now steadily moving into the season where the potential for falls in the ravine grows. It's why, once the snow flies and there's the start of a snow-and-ice ground covering in the forest, we strap on our cleats over our winter boots and from that time forward they're never taken off. They're winter boots reserved for our tramps through the winter woods. We've worn cleats for decades, and still have one of our original pairs. They're built on a kind of stiff rubber platform with straps covering toe and heel, meeting around the ankle. That's what I wore yesterday because our more flexible, completely rubber cleats were soaking to remove spring-mud. We'd forgotten to do that back in the spring.

 

The problem with the rigid sole is that my pronation twists them and that's annoying, because they eventually work their way around the sole of the boot, becoming crooked and inefficient and it's difficult to keep adjusting them while we're all fully dressed out in the woods and have to take off gloves to adjust the things. Today, it was a great relief to wear the flexible pair. As for Irving, he felt the thick tread on his boots alone would do without the cleats yesterday. How wrong he was. Traction was impaired by the conditions, and heading uphill a study in frustration. One of our hiking friends, decades younger than us, was in far worse shape, and actually had to get on his knees at one point to make it uphill.

 

Today we both wore cleats and it made a world of difference. Conditions weren't bad in the ravine. Some of the snow had turned to ice on the forest floor but with the cleats we can stride ahead with full confidence. Full confidence was in short supply for the few people we did come across. Fine on the flat areas over the crest of the hills, but the very devil to negotiate downhill and uphill. People were clinging to tree branches and shrubs for support.

 

It would be a shame, though, to miss going out for our daily jaunts through the forest with Jackie and Jillie. It's an essential part of our lives for all of us to have daily exercise, to breathe in the pure fresh air, to appreciate the landscape around us. Jackie and Jillie derive benefits we'll never know about completely, but it's certain one of those benefits isn't watching us as entertainment as we watch them as they look about for the presence of friends at various levels of the ravine, or become engrossed in compelling odours we'd prefer to avoid close contact with.

 

 

The early morning hours had a brief acquaintanceship with sun, until clouds moved in and the morning became progressively darker. Five to seven centimetres of snow was forecasted for the day.  And what was vaulted above us was most definitely a snow-sky, that very particular pewter-coloured undifferentiated mass of cloud cover waiting for the perfect time to begin dropping its load. That didn't happen while we were out in the ravine.

 

But when our circuit was completed for today and we approached street level, the snow began falling. A serious snow, not so much snowflakes as little snowballs. A factor of the temperature. Although to us it felt very cold, damp and the wind scoured the tree canopy with a hollow moan, the temperature was stuck at freezing. Conditions where the moisture from the clouds could have descended as freezing rain, but compromised with minuscule snowballs. It felt almost like sleet, with the wind and the snow.

So it was nice to get back into our nice warm house. Jackie and Jillie were enthused because they're habituated to enjoying a little salad on our return from the ravine every day. Anticipating their treat they tend to race about the house chasing after one another in an excess of appreciation for what's to come. Today it was yogurt, cucumber, yellow bell pepper and tomatoes. Gone in the wink of an eye.