We're stuck in another ritual this winter. In the morning putting out peanuts and buttered, cubed toast. In the afternoon or early evening out comes the carrots. We've only seen the black squirrels coming around lately. Red squirrels, we believe store up food for winter more efficiently and tend to semi-hibernate in their nests, and grey squirrels are fewer in number though last winter when we fed them on the porch, not the back stoop, we would see them all gathering as for a winter picnic.

 

Every evening the little rabbit makes its entrance. Usually spending more time at the side door where broken-up carrots are left, but on occasion venturing out to the front porch as though in memory of last year's abundance. Irving is no longer acquiring 50-lb bags of peanuts. Ergo, we have fewer takers coming around. While the temperature was dropping into hitherto  unforeseen depths of cold, we just cannot imagine how these little warm-blooded creatures manage to endure that level of frigidity.

 

Breaking records for extreme weather conditions is fine and good when you hear about it, not so wonderful when you experience it in living colour. It wasn't so awful, missing two consecutive days of traipsing through the snowy woods. Truth is, Jackie and Jillie didn't mind at all, but they were  happy to be back out there this afternoon. And so were we.

 

At the morning's rise in temperature from its overnight -20C to  -17C, it just kept steadily rising. Mind, there's a big difference from last night's -20C and the low of the previous nights of -30C, with  howling winds placing us in the range of -43C windchill. So we waited out the morning, welcomed afternoon, and finally when the temperature sat at a relatively balmy -10C, off we went for our hike.

 

In our absence for those several days when to venture out would risk frostbite, a light amount of new  snow had fallen overnight, and the winds of the days previous had brought down an unsurprising amount of detritus from the forest canopy. Jackie and Jillie were delighted with the seductive selection of narrow little twigs perfect for chewing.

 

Unsurprisingly, a thick layer of ice now caps the creek running through the ravine. While we were out on the trails snow began falling gently, creating a glittering veil of white and dimming the clarity of the landscape. As it falls over the frozen creek, the snow will serve to insulate the creek against the ice melting as the atmosphere becomes milder.