We're in spring. Spring that is, in the calendar year. Spring mode and mind as well, in eager anticipation of all that spring brings in renewal. We've been viewing a monochromatic white landscape for so long it's as though we're on the verge of forgetting what other colours look like in a landscape. Truth to tell, we're seeing the snowpack recede, but slowly. It's barely noticeable and we know how long it takes, year after year, for winter to finally grudgingly leave and spring to assert its fresh, new presence.

 

 

We also know, born of long experience that winter isn't over until it's over. And it's over when it eventually slinks off to nurse the grievance of under-appreciation. The piles of snow on our street reach high, accumulated over the winter months. Over people's gardens the snowpack remains about three to four feet in height, but where the lawns meet the road the snowpacks tower over me. They will take a long time yet, to melt. But here and there the effect of the sun sitting higher and warmer, along with milder daytime temperatures hovering at freezing are doing their work.

 

 

Yesterday came word that another snowstorm is on its way. To begin today and carry on through the night and into Sunday when the temperature is set to rise and snow will turn to rain; that's the forecast. By midday today, no snow. A few south-eastern states in our neighbour to the south have been hit by extremely high winds causing havoc and it is that weather system that began moving steadily toward Canada.

 

When we entered the ravine around half-past two this afternoon, all was calm. Frigid, despite the thermometer telling us it was 0C. And an icy wind as well. Fifteen minutes into our hike through the forest a few lazy snowflakes twirled out of the sky. And before we knew it we were engulfed in a blizzard of snow, windswept and icily smacking our faces. Jackie and Jillie's bright little blue and red coats, along with their topknots were soon covered with snow.

 

We saw only one other person out, with two dogs, like ourselves. Sightlines were obscured by a thick veil of snow, sometimes falling in thick clumps, but otherwise falling so thickly as though some giant hand had suddenly yanked an opaque curtain over the landscape, it was eerily beautiful. All around us the landscape was being converted back to winter, a pristine layer of new snow over everything.

The trails that had been so sloppy yesterday with melting snow and ice, today were firm and icy making for a much improved footing climbing and descending hills. Th exquisite beauty of the landscape was breathtaking. Winter telling us how much we'll miss it when it's really and truly gone.