Quite the weather day we had yesterday. But it was expected. Not quite i\on the order we were alerted to by Environment Canada, but substantial enough. It came on the heels of a snowstorm the day before. So Thursday and Friday constituted a single weather system; a storm that took two full days to complete. Which meant traffic chaos, school bus cancellations, cautionary warnings to stay off the road if at all possible, and no few numbers of fender-benders.

 

And of course -- the not=inconsiderable accompaniment of any type of significant snowfall,\ -- shovelling. And it wasn't as though one vigorous hour of shovelling would do the trick, since snow kept falling interminably, from morning to evening. For us, it meant shovelling out the walkways in the backyard three times before the final shovel-out. It was the duration of the snowfall, the effect of the wind that was notable, not the total amount of snow which came to just over 25cm for the two days. Not very impressive.

The need for the shovelling is to enable Jackie and Jillie to get about without having to paddle chest-deep through the snow. And then there was the matter of a snow sandwich which also occasioned. Snow, followed by freezing rain, followed by rain, followed by another snowstorm. So that complicated the shovelling somewhat. In that the snowpack was light on top, icy-heavy in the middle and light below that layer.

 

Even after all the shovelling, the final shovel-out committed by Irving last evening lifted a full half-foot of snow from already-shovelled walkways at the front and back of the house. At the back of the house clearing a passageway adequately free of snow and ice for Jackie and Jillie to romp about. And at the front of the house clearing the walkway from the driveway through the gardens up to the porch to enable the newspaper deliverer to access the porch without a struggle.

 

 We missed out on our afternoon hike through the forest trails yesterday. Because the snow, heavy at times, was hurled about by high winds whipping it about off rooftops and other surfaces, creating interesting landscapes of snow-humps here and there. There was intermittent white-out conditions, and it was fairly uncomfortable outside, with a chill wind blasting snow into our faces.

 

The depth of the snow also made it questionable whether Jackie and Jillie would be forced to wade through snow too deep for their comfort for too prolonged an effort. But today, we woke to a bright blue clear sky and the sun in full display, lighting up everything from its former gloomy overcast appearance the last week or so. Of course, there's a bit of an exchange; clear skies come with colder temperatures.

The thermometer nudged up to -8C by mid-afternoon from its night-time low of -16C, with nary a hint of wind and the sky a brilliant blue. We dressed ourselves for the penetrating cold and I took care to wear sunglasses against the glare of the sun on a new snowpack. Our first and actually only hurdle was to clamber over a barricade built up by the municipal plow shoving the snow off the street toward the ravine entrance. Jackie kept slipping backward, and I had to drop to my knees to manoeuvre myself over and past the barricade.

 

After that it was easy going. Someone had pulled a sled through the offshoot trail we take to access the main trails and it formed a good base to tamp down the newfallen snow. Boots that followed helped to firm it up, on the main trail system. The trees were all  heavily laden with snow sticking in broad clumps as a result of the freezing rain and rain, creating a platform to hold the fresh snow.

 

 

Because of weather conditions and the type/texture of snow that fell, it had a silky quality, the kind of snow that is resistant to clumping and to firmly holding a boot in place. Instead, that texture leads to a lot of slipping and sliding, making it more of an effort to access the top of the ravine's many hills. But we managed and once we gained the upper plateau it was pretty easy going. 

We were certainly in no hurry. The forest interior looked like a magical kingdom. Trees thickly limned in snow, everything sparkling opaque-white with overtones of crystal brilliance wherever slender rays of the sun penetrating the forest canopy touched the forest floor. Jackie and Jillie were busy zipping along the trails, calling out occasionally to friends long before we could see people and other dogs looming into view ahead of us or coming up behind.

 

Irving's Cookie-fan-Club was out in full force. So we stopped from time to time to accommodate the expectations of familiar dogs that had left their humans far behind on other trails for a quick visit to the Cookie Man before sprinting back down into valleys or up hillsides to rejoin their people. By now, Irving's dismissal must be familiar to them "Okay guys, that's all for now, go back and see your Mommy/Daddy", and off they go.

Soon we were making our way back home, finishing up our circuit. Discussing what we'd have for dinner. Soup is certainly on the menu, a hot, colourful, vegetable-packed soup, fragrant with herbs and cold-weather-comfort-food-delicious. Jackie and Jillie don't get soup, but they do enjoy their vegetable salads, and their mid-afternoon salad was in order on our return, when they 'ghost' me as I haul out the vegetables and begin to cut them into little salads to meet their appetites.