Ours is a large country stretching from east to west, north and south, each of the parts of the sum total experiencing variants of seasonal weather conditions. But lately, a weather system so vast has struck -- large enough to hover over the entire country, leaving it in winter's icy grip everywhere and showering great heaps of snow in a wide arc even to areas not normally experiencing snow that accumulates quickly and remains for a surprising duration.

In that vein, we had an email from our younger son this morning, sending along a freshly-taken photograph that followed a night of snowfall in Vancouver, which rarely experiences that level of snowstorm. Enough, we could see from the photograph taken out of his patio doors toward the backyard of his home, to see branches weighed down with a thick blanket of snow and his garage roof piled high and gleaming white.

Yesterday was another cold day here, of -8C in the afternoon, but tonight we're expecting a low of -20C, and that's quite cold. Cold enough to appreciate a dinner of comfort food that presented itself in the guise of an all-in-one dinner, a meat pie that included both meat and a bevy of complementary vegetables. To warm us and satisfy our need for energy to compensate for what it takes to maintain body warmth in exposure to a winter day.

When Irving was finished working downstairs in his workshop putting the finishing touches to a door he's building, and I finally completed the laundry, folding away the four loads that Thursday brings weekly, we went out for our afternoon walk with Jackie and Jillie, thankful for another day without wind on a mostly overcast day. On the way there, stopping to talk with some of our neighbours who shun the ravine, but take daily walks in the neighbourhood.

The footing on the trails is now excellent, they've been well tamped down by many boots making their way through from the larger community, and others who drive to the various entrances off other streets in a 40-minute walk radius. We don't really need the cleats strapped onto our boots now that the ice on the trails has been well insulated by successive snowfalls, but it doesn't hurt to wear them for greater stability on the snow-packed trails where there are uneven areas quite unlike walking on a sidewalk.

Our first visitor was the highly excitable Sully, a lovely Golden who scampers over having broken free from his human to make the trek from one trail to another to visit with us. Unlike most other dogs who sit calmly in front of Irving awaiting their cookies, Sully barks frantically until the first cookie appears, then the second, and then like all others, dashes off to regroup with his patient human.

No sooner was he gone than fleetfootingly gamboling along came Bip and Bop, always seen together since their humans tend to walk together, as neighbours enjoying a leisurely hike through the urban forest. They have a tendency to wait silently, expectantly for their allotted share of the cookies before turning and fleeing back uphill to the upper trail system, happy for another day's cookie distribution.

They know where we are at any given time, since our presence is a giveaway thanks to Jillie somehow sensing their presence, as distant as they may be from sight, sound and presumably smell. There's a certain timbre to her barks when she's beckoning friends and although they don't tend to bark back in recognition, they're irresistibly drawn to where her barks emanate from. 

And then, along came Evie, whom we haven't seen in ages; our ravine times don't mesh. Once she had her measure of cookies she dove into a snowbank while we talked awhile with her human. She nestled as deeply as she could in a snow nest she fashioned for herself, dipped her head under a few times, and settled down to cool off in the frigid -8C day.