It can be mesmerizing quietly watching light snow spiral lazily through the air, light as gossamer, minuscule stars of frozen water. Light snow fell today, is still falling, under snowclouds covering the ceiling of the sky and casting a slight opacity of pearl grey over the atmosphere. A light covering of new snow is blanketing the landscape, renewing the picture-perfect snowy-winter perspective that milder weather and rain so recently disturbed. 

 

 

Under the new,thin layer of snow, tiny globules of ice are still evident, clinging to branches, the weak ambient light casting a luminescent glow through them. There is a stillness that permeates the landscape; snow blanketing everything muting sound and an air of serenity prevails. Off in the near distance, a woodpecker busily thrums. We hear it as we enter the ravine for our daily afternoon ramble with Jackie and Jillie, and he's still there when we return on our way out, circuit completed, an hour later.

 

Today's weather is more typical of an ordinary January day in the climate of the Ottawa Valley's winter season. It's -6C at the height of the day, snow is gently falling, the air feels icy on our faces, but the forest trails underfoot are firm and easily trod. The snow is just a light covering over the ice that formed previously, and our boots with their strapped-on cleats crunch sharply.

 

Before we've negotiated the first bridge, there comes Eva, leaving her human far behind in her haste to ensure she doesn't miss us. She heads straight for us, over the bridge, to meet us at the opposite end where we're just on the cusp of boarding the bridge. So we stop awhile and Irving hauls out his cookie cache and distributes them, careful to offer Eva's on a flat hand, because she has a tendency to a rough bite. We never know whether we'll be coming across a meagre few of our canine friends or a lot of them on any given day, so usually two large cookies for large dogs is the maximum, sometimes three to ensure there's enough to go around.

 

Eva's had her limit, and she turns about to return from the direction she had come from, to join her patient friend who from a distance waves to us, up above on the ridge we'll soon be heading toward ourselves. As things turn out, we won't be coming across any others of our familiar circle of dogs looking out for Mr. Cookie Man.

We do come across other dogs much later in our ramble, they're located deep below a hill we begin descending as we reach near the end of our circuit for the day. And Jillie, as is her irritating way, has run down the hill, barking furiously at the dogs. There are three of them, one a bit large, the others just medium sized. We call her to return to us and she ignores us. And then suddenly she turns and runs back toward us along an intersecting trail and two of the dogs are after her. 

 

She reaches the trail we're on, halfway up its length, and the two dogs pounce on her and she yelps. Irving picks up speed and rushes down to disperse the dogs. Jillie is fine, her good heavy winter coat has kept her from any physical harm, and it's not likely the dogs meant to do her harm. She had irritated them with her nagging barks and they responded to her harassment. She's so stubbornly stupid about this that though she had been frightened, she hadn't been chastened enough not to continue barking after the receding dogs.