We all have our rituals, large and small. They're essentially personal social habits and can be comprised of anything. Human nature thrives on routine, although it also seeks out the unusual. The pendulum swings heavily toward routine the older we get. There's a comfort in the routine, whatever it happens to be. An anticipation and expectation, one that has no requirement for deep thought, since it's so familiar. And  since we are basically creatures of habit, usually there's a fulcrum, one of ethnicity, heritage, religion.

So it is with Friday night dinners for Jews, since Friday evening marks the solemn occasion of bringing in the Sabbath. This is religious in nature, but it is also cultural in practise. Even most secular Jews with no religious leaning whatever, recall the culinary habits of foregone generations. Diaspora Jews from a multitude of adoptive nations of the world integrated cuisines into their own. Those from different parts of Europe welcomed prevailing tastes based largely on what was most familiarly available and desirable.  Jews from the Arabian peninsula, the greater Middle East and North Africa are inclined toward the cuisines more common in those countries.

Friday night chicken soup is a dietary tradition brought down from vast generations of dietary adaptation. As a routine, the habit of making Friday night dinner special with or without religious connotations reflects the Jewish character in terms of food. Chicken soup in a variety of guises; with rice, with noodles, with matzah dumplings and any number of variations on the general theme exemplifies that heritage food tradition. It's what we have every Friday night.

Accompanied as a main course by poultry in an endless variety of recipes; the most common for a family would be roast chicken, but chicken lends itself to a wide spectrum of interesting presentations. One of which we also had, last night. And so, this is the kind of meal that's heavy on tradition and fairly heavy on the waistline. The result of which is that on the following days, lighter meals are preferred; a compensation of overindulgence.

Indulging in food beyond the amount we really need to sustain life is a universal habit of all animals. We eat not only to preserve ourselves but to pleasure ourselves. The flip side of overindulgence is the acknowledgement that an expenditure of daily energy through physical activity is also required to maintain health and stave off the buildup of unneeded extra pounds.

We did that as usual with one of our daily recreational hikes through the forest we have the great good fortune to live beside. Today turned out yet another beautiful late-winter day. That's the good news about today; light wind and lots of sunshine on a moderate-temperature day. The bad news is that we've got to turn our clocks back an hour and no one enjoys doing that; we feel cheated out of an hour of a 24-hour period. In the larger picture, while it's upsetting to routine as it were, the end result is that we enjoy  an extra hour of daylight.

We came across quite a few people from the larger community out on the trails with their dogs. Hard to imagine a better, more healthful and enjoyable routine than that. When we encountered our old friends Sheila and Barry, we exchanged pleasantries as usual, then a hauntingly beautiful series of sound, a kind of familiar music. First from one direction, then another. A conversation was ensuing. And it was loud enough to tell us that the owls were very close by; in fact, right above our heads.

Our friends, younger with sharper eyes were able to make out on either side of the trail, just above where we stood, two owls. Just their shapes, not details. Irving caught a glimpse of one, I strained to make them out, but wasn't able to. They were perched up quite high and the density of tree trunks and branches made it difficult to make them out at that height peering into the sun, but barred owls they were. We've been hearing their calls for some time, so they're preparing to nest. It's obvious to the wildlife that we're beginning to veer toward spring.

Walking back home afterward, it struck us how much snow we have left. It's a large snowpack this year, which is why Environment Canada has warned of flooding this spring in our area. When mild enough weather does intervene, we'll be thinking that it will take forever for the snow to melt, but melt it will, it always does.