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.

After a while you become accustomed to anything, incorporate it into the reality of your life and just get on with things. Most people do. I'd have to exclude our direct neighbour to our left. The man of the household avoids social contact as though his life depends on it, and always has. We've lived next to them for the past 30 years; he's the most socially introverted person we've ever come across. We value our personal privacy, but we've never shied away from greeting people, meeting people, spending time with people.

Their daughter was just newly born when we moved into our house, next to theirs. She's an independent adult now, has long since moved away to live on her own. When, on the rare occasion she visits with her boyfriend, neither are permitted to enter the house. Winter or summer they must stand outside on the porch, raise their voices, and exchange brief greetings. His elderly sister, quite a bit older than he who lives in a care home, sat outside on a chair in front of their porch today, for she too was not permitted to enter the house after her brother picked her up for a visit.

Irving will speak jocularly to strangers, stopping the car momentarily to pass a few quips when he sees someone walking a puppy along a street. When we did the shopping today it reminded me, because we'd gone out late in the afternoon, of how we managed the food shopping in the pre-vaccination days of the pandemic. Venturing out just as the supermarket opened and shopping while it was mostly empty to avoid potential contact with COVID carriers.

Today, though most people are vaccinated and the daily case numbers have plunged, case numbers fluctuate back and forth, and it is mostly the unvaccinated who feature in large numbers among the infected. But we've returned to our normal pattern of shopping, going out when it's more convenient, shopping amongst other masked and distance-respecting people gathering their food for the week.

We had earlier gone out with Jackie and Jillie for a circuit of the forest trails on a beautiful, warmish-cool late summer Tuesday. Gentle breeze, blue sky, a bright day in contrast to the heavily overcast day yesterday turned out to be for Labour Day, with plenty of rain. No sign of yesterday's on-and-off-again rain in the forest today, however. The trails were dry, and the screen of the leaf mass was a vibrant green. 

We've noted for a while the spectacle of growing piles of sawdust under certain trees and fallen trunks alongside the forest trails. Symptoms of carpenter ants busy doing what carpenter ants do. Nature's unerring blueprint of death and renewal. Hollow trees that are ailing, hosting nests of ants who take their job seriously. Others nesting in or nearby dead trees, equally devoted to the task nature set out for them; the growing sawdust piles testament to their gradual and inexorable helping hand in decay whose end-matter becomes the nursing base for new growth.

When we're passing along the forest trails, we train our eyes everywhere; on the ground, straight ahead, and above the tree line. Looking at the forest floor you don't tend to miss seasonal flowering wildflowers, small creatures, from beetles and bugs to bustling chipmunks and squirrels. Straight ahead, the dragonflies and bees that veer here and there among the vegetation. Raising eyes higher, the looping flight of warblers, and the upended creep of nuthatches on tree trunks. Higher still, and you note the presence of wasp nests and wind-cracked tree trunks.

We saw one today, a large old poplar that had split about fifteen feet from the ground, the upper, longer portion of the trunk fallen on the supportive trunks and branches of surrounding trees, stopping the broken trunk from falling to the ground. It sits there now, perched directly over the trail. When and if it falls it will create quite the impact, with sound to match. Because of the height at which the tree cracked it would take an experienced arborist to remove the threat it represents.

 

Habit is an interesting phenomenon, practised by humans but also by others within the animal kingdom. Animals like our Jackie and Jillie who have habits of their very own, some of which impinge on ours just as some of our habits instruct them. They are excellent time-keepers, for example. Around ten every evening Jackie gets restless and wants to go out to the backyard. He figures that this will trigger our willingness to go up to bed. It never does; we won't do that for another hour, or most frequently two more hours.

 
In the morning Jillie gets restless just before eight, and thinks we should be up and getting breakfast for her and her brother, and she gets very insistent about her obligation to remind us of our sacred duty to do just that. In the early evening, at six on the dot, they both rouse themselves to stand stolidly, reproachfully before me with the unspoken yet very obvious message not requiring vocalization that it's dinner time for them.

When they've finished their 'first course' at dinnertime, consisting of their kibble topped with chicken and chicken soup to moisten the kibble, they're impatient for the next course. While this is being prepared Jillie turns dizzy circles of anticipation, and sometimes Jackie joins her.That's the fresh vegetable salad they get every evening. It starts out with frozen cauliflower zapped lightly in t he microwave, then bell pepper, snap peas, cucumber and tomatoes cut into little pieces mixed in with the cauliflower. If I'm not quick enough Jackie gets quite upset and barks out his orders for me to 'move it!'.

On our return from our daily spin through the forest trails in our nearby ravine, they burst through the house in a mad run-about, an excess of joyfulness. And then they get down to the serious business of dogging me in the kitchen, reminding me that I haven't yet given them their afternoon treat, and that's raw, cut-up cauliflower in their little dishes. They leap with excitement awaiting those dish-deposits before them and dive straight in.

So they know their times-of-day, clever aren't they? And then there's the issue of knowing which day of the week it happens to be. They know that on Mondays and Fridays we have cereal for breakfast, and that means they can look forward to little bowls of cereal and milk of their own after they've had their kibble. Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays my husband has soft-boiled eggs at breakfast, and those are the days they know they'll be getting an egg split between them as a treat; hard-boiled or scrambled.

That leaves the weekend, which is their favourite for on Saturdays they can smell bacon and eggs on the stove and they prance around anxiously awaiting their portions in their little dishes. But their favourite of all their favourites is Sunday, for that's the day we have either French toast and sausages or pancakes and sausages. Today it was banana pancakes served with sausages; they turn head-over-heels for Sunday treat.

Another treat of somewhat dubious quality was in store for today; a shortened daylit-Sunday. Heavily overcast all day, but by half-past two there was no longer any pretense at daylight, and we knew that snow, finally, was on the way. When we emerged from the house a tad after three, light snow had begun falling on a 0C day, and the wind had come up notably.

For the duration of our ramble through the woods snow fell and gradually its white aspect covered everything. This may turn out to be a nice snowstorm; rumours of 20 centimetres in the forecast, and welcome. Jackie and Jillie's warm little paws made impressions on the slowly-accumulating snow as we marched through the trails, and the atmosphere kept getting progressively darker, until by the time we emerged, hauling ourselves back up to street level, it was completely dark. We'd better get used to it.

Nights have been so cool lately, brisk winds entering our bedroom window persuading us to pull up a blanket and even then we're not warm enough. So I decided yesterday it was time to outfit the bed with a light-weight duvet. And surely it's much too early for that? Oh right, the last day of August. The month just flew by. My mind is left back in June, so I'm not certain where July and August spent their time. I'd ask Jackie but he's annoyed with me and isn't inclined to have a serious conversation at the moment.

And wouldn't you know it, the temperature descended only to 14C last night, so it wasn't all that cool and there we were, stuck with that too-early duvet. Well, it won't be long before we begin to feel yet again that for a sound night's sleep we need something a little more guaranteed of warmth. But today, the first day of September of the the truly astonishingly dysfunctional year of 2020, turned out to be reasonably warm and unreasonably humid.

When we left for the ravine in the early morning it was still cool enough for light jackets. By the time we exited an hour and a half later, the jackets felt a trifle confining. Still cool enough, however, to enjoy the warmth of the sun shining directly on  us whereas during the frequent hot and humid days of summer we did our best to avoid direct sun contact.

The creek is now running a low level. It's finished carrying all the rain dumped in the forest in the past several weeks down on its  journey to the Ottawa River. Companion dogs coming through the forest steer directly for the cool water of the creek to tramp about in it, and it's shallow enough that the bottom of the creek roughed up by happy paws of large dogs turns turbid with the particulate matter of clay and sand. There's always a wet trail from certain access points leading up from the creek to the banks sitting over it.

A few mushrooms have appeared on the forest floor, now assuming shades of a pleasing yellow. And odd looking fungi grow here and there on rotting tree stumps. Bright red haws have ripened on the area of one of the trails where groups of Hawthorns grow.

A few others were out this morning, unlike the morning before when we saw no one. People move about in a bit of a fog, as though they're not yet, and likely never will be, accustomed to the thought that a highly infectious virus lingers everywhere, that people passing by might be carriers shedding the virus and a social distance must be maintained. 

On return home we showered, had breakfast, cleaned up, and bade Jackie and Jillie sayonara for the brief period it would take to get our grocery shopping done. By some odd alchemy of emotions they know long before we think it should become evident that we're leaving the house in their custody. And they want no part of it. It's the only time we'll hear Jackie whine, while Jillie hangs back forlornly. Usually when we prepare to leave the house they're excited, leaping at us for inclusion, wearing their collars as a signal that they're coming with us.

That excitement is not just subdued it's entirely replaced by hopeless resignation that we're leaving them, poor tykes. When we pull up into the driveway and the garage door goes up we can hear them barking excitedly. They race out to greet us as we haul in the groceeries, relieved they haven't been entirely abandoned. 

A frenzy of leaps and appeals ensues until eventually they calm down and begin rooting about in the plastic boxes holding the items from our grocery shopping. I have already precipitated their curiosity removing the two cauliflower heads to the top of the kitchen counter out of their reach, before Jackie can begin tearing into them. Nothing else excites them as does cauliflower. And for a treat, they get a little bowl of cauliflower florets and feel mollified.

We slept in this morning to an unheard-of 9:30. And awoke only then because Jackie and Jillie were nudging us awake. Small they may be and delicate-featured, but when you're in repose and they inadvertently happen to step on you, there's more than enough physical pressure to influence your lazy eyes to open as you groggily acknowledge their presence.

Which meant that we were late setting off with them this morning on our usual early morning ravine hike. They were pretty cheerful about it, in contrast to our slight ill humour. Truth is, Jackie awoke us at 4:30 a.m. once again, having to be let out to the backyard. Second night in a row. Disturbed sleep doesn't make for the best of bedfellows.

But if we  hadn't set out so late we'd never have come across our old friends Rod and Nova. Nova takes Rod out to the ravine three times a day. He's a bundle of energy, a white German Shepherd who loves people and evidently coyotes, as well. Jackie and Jillie have known Nova since they were all three puppies. Rod was out for his second turn in the ravine this morning. He's taking shorter circuits this past year, finding the ascents and descents a little demanding. Nova, on the other hand, looks for distractions and is off and about here and there in the forest interior.

She plays with the coyotes, they indulge in little chase-abouts, it would seem, and  have for quite a while. Rod told us that because he sets out just after six every morning he frequently sees coyotes. Last week on two occasions he saw and  heard a coyote close to where he stood, yipping. He finally deduced that it was alerting another coyote to the presence of people (him). They were protecting coyote pups in a nearby den.

Hard to say how many coyotes the forest accommodates now, whether there's a full pack, a family group whose territory it has become. But we're agreed that the coyotes pose no threat unless they're challenged by dogs chasing after them. And Nova doesn't chase after them, he chases with them for a frolic. Rod told us he watched recently while they ran after one another, Nova and a coyote, up and down one of the hills, five times in quick succession before Nova rejoined him.

Jackie and Jillie are not socially inclined in that manner. They tend to behave aggressively when confronted by a dog they're not familiar with. And we know their reaction on coming across a coyote would be to challenge it, first by barking furiously, then by harassing it, leaping about and growling. Two very small dogs threatening a species quite close to them on the evolutionary scale. The coyotes, to protect themselves would respond and we'd stand the chance of losing one or both of our rash little companions. Therefore, the leashes.

For part of our circuit there appeared quite a few other ravine hikers we've known over the years, but as we ventured further within the forest, their number declined to the point where the last half of our circuit was serene and quiet, none others around -- man nor beast -- but for ourselves. The forest was drying out nicely from the past several weeks of ongoing rain events; no more puddles on the trails, no more glittering drops on the vegetation.

We ambled on past our last ascent to street level, bypassing it to extend our hike just a little further, wanting to see how the wildflowers that grow in some abundance in a forest clearing had coped with the rain. And were rewarded with the sight of large colourful clumps of goldenrod, a few lagging groups of fleabane, clover in flower, plenty of pilotweed still flowering, a few purple loosestrife, Himalayan orchids, and the creme de la creme, black-eyed Susans.

Yet another one of those mornings when the overnight rain has just stopped and though the sun hasn't yet pierced the grey cloud cover, it promises that it will before long. Unless, that is, rain decides it has first choice of reappearance and sets the sun's agenda intentions back somewhat. A cool morning, with an underlying message that by afternoon the atmosphere will be heated back to its usual dog-days-of-summer temperature.

August, in any event, excels at being unpredictable. Cool enough the past week to pull on a blanket in the wee hours of the night, as night-time air wafts through the bedroom window. Warm enough by mid-afternoon to feel exhausted, working out in the garden, even in the shade. As we did yesterday afternoon. Jackie and Jillie love wandering through the forest trails with us, but they're none too keen to be out in the backyard other than for official business.

Yesterday they tolerated the heat because we were for the most part at the front of the house, working on the gardens there. They prefer being there to the backyard since it's on the street in front of the house that action, if any materializes, takes place with people sauntering by or children riding bicycles, or people walking their dogs up or down the street, eliciting their attention.

It amazes us that last year at this time in the forest we were confronted with the sight of two Himalayan orchids, their flowers radiantly glowing in the sun. This year it's not merely two of the plants that decorate the forest confines before plunging deep into the interior, for the fast-replicating plants have managed in one season  to colonize an entire hillside leading into the forest, their bright pink flowers capturing the sunlight like little beacons of light.

They're late bloomers and still have plenty of time to continue showing off. But in the same token it's become abundantly clear that fall has sent its initial emissaries to stealthily initiate the process of shutting down summer for another year. All the signs are there; random fallen foliage, mostly poplar and maples, standing out for the brilliant hues they've taken on.

And mushrooms which normally appear in fall have begun to pop up here and there. The forest squirrel population has been busy acquiring and storing food to take them over the sere winter months. We've been discovering lots of spruce cones fully or partially taken apart, their seeds either eaten or taken away for winter storage. Similarly, we see the same with acorns, that in fact squirrels nip them off the oak branches not waiting for them to fall, then chew them apart to extract the oaknut.

There were others out and about on the trails, but only a few, compared to yesterday, and with them their companion dogs. So Jackie and Jillie did enjoy some socializing, everyone behaving themselves for a change (which is to say, Jackie and Jillie did; other dogs tend to be better behaved than our two little rascals).

And then, after taking our time lollygagging about we completed the morning's circuit and returned home. In the interim between when we'd set out and returned the atmosphere had turned decidedly warmer, the humidity level had risen, and now that our morning walk was concluded we were prepared to welcome afternoon rain whether thunderstorms of just plain rain. All the vegetation surrounding us love it. A far cry from what is happening in China where monsoon type rains have been unstoppable for months, resulting in massive floods in the central part of the country. To the extent that there are fears the Three Gorges Dam could conceivably fail.