Yesterday proved to be a washout as far as getting out for our usual foray through the winter forest. Winter it may be, but the temperature rose to 2-degrees-Censius and that promoted rain, not snow. Regardless of how heavily it may snow, the presence of a snowstorm is never a reason not to get out and enjoy a scene of transformative beauty and fresh air. Rain is an altogether different story. Voluminous, steady rain at that temperature is pure chilling discomfort.

 

 

A situation that called out for a comforting evening meal, and we had it in a beef stew, hot in temperature and in seasoning. Along with the chopped garlic and onion in olive oil, I added finely chopped enoki mushrooms before searing the veal cubes. Then came ground black pepper, and a careful measure of hot smoked paprika. Once I thickened the liquid (beef consomme from a bouillon cube) I added sliced carrots,pearl onions and baby fingerling potatoes to simmer  until dinnertime. A bed of steamed kasha to absorb the stew worked very well.

Today arrived heavily overcast and damp, but no rain expected. So out we went in the mid-afternoon with Jackie and Jillie for our daily drift through the snow-packed forest in the ravine. Although the snowpack remains  high, it's firmer now, and litter is beginning to darken its surface, as a result of the rain. The trails are full of fallen detritus from the tree canopy, and other 'litter' of a more problematic nature.

 

Jackie and Jillie want to smell everything, and we have to keep an eagle eye out for their welfare and ours because of all the newly revealed faeces. Not only to avoid stepping on any, but to ensure our pups momentarily 'forget' they've been instructed to steer clear.

Clear is anything but what the creek running through the ravine now represents. The snowmelt is seen there, too, in a swollen runoff that is thick with muck. The heavy stream rakes the Leda clay bottom of the creekbed and the resulting diffusion of particles has darkened the stream to a deep brown. Not very beautiful, but at least it doesn't reek of methane gas as it did last week.

 

We bumped into two old friends, walking their sole little Border Collie. One, where they once walked three sibling pups; two brothers and a sister. Maya is the last left of the litter, and she's 15 years old and looks every bit of it. Her brothers went one after the other in fairly quick order. She surmounted her loss, but she's never been the same since.

Tomorrow's another day, and it will be one that veers back to normal temperatures and an expected snowfall of at least ten centimetres. And it will be welcome, to produce a soft, lofty covering of the landscape still deeply entrenched in winter, struggling far too soon to resemble spring.