We were a few hours earlier out to the ravine this afternoon. Routine usually sees us there in the mid- to late-afternoon. So when we come across people we know -- which would describe the majority of people that make the ravine a daily destination -- it's clear that they too answer to daily routines involving time.

Any day that we're out on the forest trails with Jackie and Jillie at a time that deviates from our usual routine we tend to see people for whom those times are routine. Many live close to other people we often see in the ravine, and if we haven't seen someone in particular for a while, we always tend to ask after them. That the larger community through which the ravine runs is comprised of a much smaller community of residents who value proximity to the ravine confers on us a kind of link to nature.

Jackie and Jillie too are treated to more unusual occasions when they see companion dogs they're familiar with at times like today, and it's a little bit like 'old times' day for them. Almost as though you can hear them thinking and speaking to one another: Hey, how're ya! Haven't seen you in awhile! How've things been going? The major difference is that we greet one another in a more restrained manner, standing in one spot, gesticulating, talking.

 

Unlike our canine companions who invite one another to tussles and run-abouts after the mutual ceremony of sniffing one another's back-ends. But then, we don't read messages they leave to one another on snow banks, either.

We found that although the thermometer casually informed us that the temperature was a full six degrees milder than yesterday, there was still a wind, and it felt just as cold as yesterday. That is partly a reflection of our age, at 86, since one of our smiling ravine acquaintances was clearly feeling a kind of body heat we weren't -- his winter jacket unzipped and fully opened.

 

By last night I was feeling the effects of the day's shovelling; a bit cramped. Not muscle soreness, but a feeling of gentle decreptitude enveloped me at midnight. Time to go to bed anyway, but this time I was unable to read more than a page of my bedside book before turning off my lamp and snuggling deep under the duvet.

 

It was still and quiet out in the ravine. But for brief conversational stops. Mostly the vast expanse of forest and sky and trees was ours alone, with its multitude of different landscapes, all so familiar to us yet presenting themselves somewhat differently each time we see them -- which is part of their everlasting charm.

 

 

The forest canopy, despite the wind, still has some of yesterday's snowfall left limning branches and trunks. We find ourselves now walking at least a foot higher on the floors of the bridges over the creek, given the firmly tamped-down snowpack frozen on the wooden boards. I can look with ease now over the top rail of the bridges, at the spectacle of the creek, crystal clear and running downstream.

For the last week or so crows have been gathering, flying high and swooping on the wind the sound of their cawing reverberating through the stillness of the woods. I have the impression that they know something we don't. The anticipation in their calls of oncoming spring, although calendar spring is still a long way off. Could be they're complaining about that very reality, clever birds that they are...