This year marks a century since three University of Toronto scientists discovered that life-saving protein that is also a vital hormone, to inject into people diagnosed with diabetes who, without daily injections of insulin would die an early death after a short and brutally miserable life of suffering. There are millions of people worldwide who owe their lives to Dr.Frederick Banting, Dr.Charles Best and Dr.J.B.Colip, in the laboratory of Dr.J.J.R. McLeod for their research and discovery of insulin in 1921.

It was what was then called Juvenile Diabetes, now 'Type 1', insulin-dependent diabetes that ravaged the lives of young people, children and babies in an abrupt degeneration of their body's ability to move glucose into body cells for energy. Instead, the glucose absorbed through food and drink remained in the blood stream sometimes causing convulsions, and eventually causing extreme organ damage, and early death. 

Death by heart attack as a result of unregulated diabetes; diabetic retinopathy and loss of eyesight; and nerve damage so severe that diabetics could step on nails and feel no pain until septicemia set in and then gangrene, necessitating limb-removal surgery. Not much to look forward to in life with a diagnosis of insulin-dependent diabetes. And not the same as adult-onset diabetes caused by overeating and lack of exercise.

The hypothesis was that a genetic disposition somewhere in the DNA bank of individuals was responsible for damage to the insulin-producing beta cells in the Isles of Langerhans resident in the pancreas going amok in the endocrine system, caused by an auto-immune response by the body to the presence of a foreign substance. In our case, when our oldest son at age 16 was diagnosed, we theorized that it was a routine tetanus update shot that had spurred the event.

Milestones in history, in medicine, in evolution of human survival, in one's personal life.

And today brought us pleasure, not pain and sorrow of the type we felt 45 years ago. Today, the sun shone, breezes tickled our faces, and light jackets sufficed to enable us to stride through forest trails with two little companions. Today our son is healthy, but not everyone must inject insulin two to three times daily and take innumerable blood-glucose tests daily ti determine how much insulin to inject, to ensure they remain that way.

We ventured out with Jackie and Jillie this afternoon on a perfectly lovely spring day, feeling good about life in general and our lives in particular. Humans are resilient, capable of moving on in their lives particularly when devastated at one time or another by something truly threatening that imperils life. And you know you're fortunate when you absorb the daily news from around the world detailing the misery that events in life can bring to so many.

In this day and era, though there is less poverty in the world, more people are living secure lives, all of this is now backgrounded with a global pandemic that takes innocent people's lives in unbelievable numbers while science and governments work frantically to reduce the level of threat.

 

 

The province is now opening reservations for vaccine appointments to people 70 years of age and older. And even as the rollout of new vaccine deliveries to the provinces via the federal government is proceeding apace, enabling more senior groups considered to be the most vulnerable age-groups for contracting the novel coronavirus with serious consequences and high rates of death, there is a worrisome growing spike of new cases daily.

That third wave is being driven by the newly introduced variants, in particular the United Kingdom variant that resulted from the virus mutating, which, like its South Africa and Brazil counterparts are far more infectious and more deadly. All three focus on the spike feature of the virus that enables the pathogen to obtain a firm hold on human cells for more favourable infiltration.

It is not, now, the elderly demographic that is showing up at hospital emergency centres and being placed in ICUs, but younger age groups between age 18 and 39, attributable to their penchant for being more sociable, more likely to gather in groups, more likely to show up at social venues where numbers in attendance increase the risk of communicability.

In the past two days alone Ontario had registered an additional 6100 cases of COVID. That rapid escalation has induced the government to declare the necessity for a partial lockdown, moving all parts of the province from a red zone designation to a grey zone. Only a generalized 'stay-at-home' order tops the grey zone in its serious nature. Even as health authorities are stating their opinion that the methods being used in the hope of controlling the outbreak are insufficient to the need.

From today, there is an official four-week lockdown which represents an emergency response but doesn't reflect a more severe and complete lockdown that would come with a 'stay-at-home' order, but it is compelling and it is concerning.

It isn't difficult for us to stay at home, and nor is it for most elderly people. The young and the feckless who are restless and fed up with the trajectory and threat inherent in this new wold order and who are now driving the upward-scaling trend evidently went out partying last night to bars and other social venues as a last hurrah for the next month.

 

It turned out to be a sunny, less windy, milder day with the temperature soaring to 9C by afternoon. Before we set out for our hike through the ravine trails with Jackie and Jillie I went out briefly to begin cleaning up the incredible mass of woody detritus that had accumulated over the winter months. Much of it caused by our large mature spruce trees releasing their cones in an extraordinarily cone-productive year, and part of it by the municipal plows hacking off minor branches of our two spruces growing at the edge of our garden closest to the road.

 

Then off we went, on a lovely, bracing day for a pleasant outing. Pleasant, as long as we're discounting what lies underfoot in the forest where the milder temperature has released even more mud to slog through on the trails. Thank heavens for their rubber boots for Jackie and Jillie, otherwise on arrival back home afterward and trying to clean up their little paws with what seems to resemble indelible ink, it would take us forever to release paws and pads from the muck they'd have picked up. As it is, with the boots, a quick wash and dry and they're ready for action the following day.

 

 

There are areas of the trails that will take many weeks yet before the ice still packed densely on them will melt. But on a sunny day we look up and around us rather than down at our feet as we make our way along the trails moving from one landscape to another. Now that we're allowing Jackie and Jillie to sniff and snuffle their way along the trails they're becoming accustomed to regulating themselves, to remain within sight-distance, to behave a little more respectfully to any other dogs we may come across, which makes our hikes through the ravine even more pleasurable.

 

These days when neighbours speak together the first thing that comes to their minds is to question whether anyone has yet had their COVID vaccines. Most of our neighbours -- at least the original ones -- are retired and in the age demographic that the province has finally assured that should they register expeditiously they'll have their inoculation administered in a matter of days.

Ottawa is now registering case numbers in the low hundreds, but they're steadily creeping up and have been for several weeks, mostly driven by the new variants, and of those for the most part, the one that emerged in Great Britain, though wastewater treatment analysis has revealed the presence of the more grave and infectious South African and Brazilian variants as well. 

And with this third wave it appears to be a younger age demographic that has increasingly called on the health services of our local hospitals. A rather grim occurrence is known where nine patients at the Civic Hospital, there for treatment unrelated to COVID, contracted the virus while in hospital and died there of the effects of COVID. 

Moreover, the Ottawa Heart Institute has reported that admitted patients and associated health care workers, all of whom had received at least the initial dose of vaccine, have contracted COVID-19. Area schools have seen swiftly rising cases of COVID among students and staff in a worrying trend. And with the approach of the Easter weekend, health authorities keep reminding the public of the dire need to continue observing social distancing, masking and non-attendance at group events.

Ottawa was moved from the orange zone to the red a mere two weeks earlier. Now the provincial government and its health authority advisers are prepared to move it further into restrictive territory, in the grey zone, while appealing to people to avoid situations where transmission of the virus is likely to add to the numbers already identified with COVID, kick-starting another emergency situation in hospitals hard-put to serve their community function as it is.

The human mind needs relief from the constant references to the coronavirus threatening the world. We take ours when we venture out into our nearby forested ravine with Jackie and Jillie, our two little poodles, for a needed distraction; exercise, exposure to nature, fresh air and the sheer enjoyment of being out-of-doors taking note of seasonal changes in the forest.

As we entered the initial precinct of the ravine we saw the first woolly bear caterpillar of the season. It's an early season for the little creatures; here it is the first of April and their usual emergence date is around June. This little fellow chose a blustery, cold day to search for a suitable place to build a cocoon so he could turn into a tiger moth.

Yesterday's rain helped more snow and ice to vacate the forest trails. Given yesterday's weather forecast, we were expecting snow overnight, but it was either delayed or cancelled by the big fella up there. We're at the point where some areas that we know well from past experience will continue to cling to thick layers of ice while the remainder of the trails will be long free of snow and ice, convincing us to go elsewhere rather than risk uncomfortable falls. 

It was cold out there, with the high for the day at 0C, and a cold-piercing wind. It was back to winter jackets for all of us. We'd like to shed our cleats but whatever ice is left on the trails, particularly ascents and descents, persuades us otherwise. Booted and with cleats, for the most part we trod about in areas of trail deep in mud. These are conditions -- the cold and the wind, and the muddy spring-thawing ground alternating with areas of slippery ice -- that convinces most people to stay off the forest trails and out of the ravine.

Which is a gift to us, since it means we'll enjoy a quiet, peaceful trek through the woods. And since we've been informed by people who often report seeing and hearing coyotes that they appear to have decamped because no one, even those living alongside the ravine who often see and hear them during the nighttime hours no longer do, that we'd leave Jackie and Jillie off-leash today. It hardly seems they know the difference. They range further of course and we keep admonishing them to stay close by, but they seem unaware that they're no longer tethered to us.

There, it's happened again. Up until yesterday we in the Ottawa area were being advised we were on the cusp of slipping out of the orange and into the red zone yet again. Led for the most part by the incursion of a variant version of the novel coronavirus that arose through a mutation that was first detected in the United Kingdom. There are a few other variants, those from Brazil and South Africa that have also barged into this country but not to the extent of the UK variant. Seen mostly in a younger age group, 15 to 35. And it's that variant that is leading this new third wave necessitating another lockdown.

More contagious by far, with heavier loads and apparently, more lethal. So we've now been informed that we're back into lockdown. Which means various things; mostly that people will no longer be able to access places important to their lifestyles that have gone through multiple closures and re-openings. Restaurants, cafes, gyms, will all once again teeter on the edge of profitability. And more of these small local businesses will go out of business, sadly.  'Crowd' control will be re-enacted once again, where supermarkets will operate at 75 percent of capacity and so on.

 

When we were out this afternoon with Jackie and Jillie on another near-spring day of 4C, sun and wind we couldn't help but notice that fewer people strange to the community of regular trail hikers are in evidence. Our mind-calming, entertaining and exercise-pleasant daily circuits through the forest trails have returned. And we just wonder whether, with entrance to another lockdown people in their boredom and restlessness will once again filter in groups back into the ravine.

 

Because it's substantially milder at 4C, and with the added bonus of a mild overnight temperature, the snowpack is fast disappearing. In the ravine there are now bare patches of ground unobstructed by ice and snow. The trails that only a day earlier were glassy-smooth with ice are now completely mushed. In fact they're every bit as slippery in this condition as they were previously.

 

It's just that the slide marks of people losing control of their footing descending and ascending hills is now much more readily discernable in the softened ice-mush than it was when the trail surfaces were completely frozen. And should, theoretically, serve as a heads-up to anyone using those trails. I just managed to save myself from a misstep that would have ended in a fall on a flat portion of trail, as it happened.

 

Irving wasn't quite as fortunate. On the bridges the build-up seasonal snow on their floors is substantial. In the mid-section of the bridge floor the pack is high and solid, falling away on the sides. There's up to a foot differential in height. So an incautious or oblivious step beyond the solid area sends an unwary foot slipping to the side and suddenly balance is compromised. Irving slipped and found himself thudding onto the bridge floor. Falling on snow, even hard snow the shock experienced is from being completely destabilized, more than the impact of the fall. A few aches may result from that fall, but nothing more, thank heavens.

Jackie and Jillie slipped about here and there as well, but nothing they couldn't handle. Boots shift deep into the slush making each step a bit of labour to gain traction. Conditions very familiar to us, since they're the same every year at this time. The creek is running wide, dark and fast, and that will accelerate as the days go on. Less so likely tomorrow, when we'll be back down to 0C, but several days to follow will return us to the pluses again.

 

Walking down our street there's a huge difference in the snowpack on lawns. We estimate that at least fifty percent of the winter snowpack has now melted. So though there seems to be a lot of snow yet to go, go it will, and more expeditiously than it seems possible as we warm up into spring.

 

The streets are deserted when we venture out before eight in the morning, no one about on foot, and few vehicles on the road. Stay-at-home orders are still in effect, and the easing of the lockdown has been moved forward a few days. Ottawa will see a cautious opening, but Toronto and region will not, not yet, not until their case counts are somewhat reduced. Quebec is opening up as well; not sure whether the curfew remains in effect there, arguably the worst-hit by the coronavirus epidemic in the country.. 

We  haven't gone out anywhere for quite a while; it's more than a little sobering and encouraging of caution when your province goes into lockdown augmented by stay-at-home conditions. All the more so, if you keep abreast of the day's COVID figures. A ray of sunlight has emerged, though with a week and more of steadily reducing numbers of COVID-19 cases and deaths attributed to COVID.

Although Ottawa is not a city that has been hit hard particularly by the coronavirus generally, like other areas of the country where long-term care residents and caregivers have been hit hard where the most vulnerable of the vulnerable have become sickened and died in great numbers from the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the same situation has occurred here as elsewhere. So, yes, caution is not only advised but personally mandatory. Now that vaccinations have got underway in the long-term and retirement homes along with inoculation of caregivers and health emergency responders there's been a reduction of cases and deaths there, too.

Reason for optimism, even if Canada's place in the firmament of vaccine shipments and inoculations has been so dismal, placing us in 51st spot for both, whereas other countries whose leaders were far more aggressive and timely in their response to the need to ensure their populations received life-saving inoculations left ours in the dust. Time has never been more 'of the essence', however, than now. To ensure that the base of the population is protected and we head into 'herd immunity' territory.

This morning's grocery shopping went well. Unlike last week we encountered fully packed shelves and lacked for nothing. The temptation in these times is to buy more than we need; the expression of a little bit of anxiety over whether food supplies are secure. Food bank donations are certainly increased again with people seeming to regularly now remember to buy additional food to place in the large receptacle placed in the supermarket's foyer for that purpose.

 By the time we had breakfast and Jackie and Jillie were truly surfeit with treats topping up their morning meal, we gratefully relaxed, and then prepared to go out for our hike through the ravine. We had light snow again this morning, the wind had come up somewhat, and the morning's -12C had risen to -6C.

Yesterday, when Irving had picked up a few items at Farmboy, having reasoned that going there at dinnertime would see the place deserted, and he was able to stock up on wine, cider and U.S.-sourced oranges, he also bought a bottle of wine as a gift. He generally doesn't pay much for his own wine, but splurged this time, since the wine was meant as a token of appreciation for Dan, our next-door neighbour, and Lynn who have been shovelling our front walk and porch this winter, despite our protestations.

We were pleasantly surprised once out in the ravine to realize after awhile that we weren't seeing many others out on the trails. We took a long circuit of interconnected trails and ended up seeing fewer than a handful of other people, other dogs, so it felt as though we had the entire forest to ourselves, just like old times before the advent of lockdown and people desperately looking for things to do.

 

There is an air of unreality hovering in the general atmosphere. Can all of this really be happening ... the news replete with inexorably growing tallies of pandemic victims, the world struggling to save itself from the intrusion of a tiny virus that has laid millions low, hundreds of thousands in intensive care, hospitals overwhelmed, nations' economies in tatters, and people everywhere confused and fearful. 

Lockdowns, tightening the screws on permissible social activities, all extraneous actions on tampdown leaving the most basic of needs to be carefully catered to -- at a distance, masked, cognizant of possibly infected surfaces, keeping distance, finding it difficult to maintain sanity. It's the mental tipple of thrills tinged with fear read of in thrillers and viewed in horror films.

But there is normalcy for those fortunate enough to find it, and some have. Normalcy is living life as best you can, reliant on catering to ordinary needs, safe shelter, food, medical attention if required, mental stimulation, physical exercise. Uncomplicated by the presence of dependents if you're elderly, focusing on the here and now and what can be done to ensure that even this straitened life is a treasure to be jealously guarded.

Another interminably long email received this morning from the 'Health First' medical clinic our family doctor works out of, informing us how much its patients mean to them, how their thoughts are with us all, and how they're working flat out to cope with the coronavirus and serve the best interests of their patients. Video-conference or telephone 'appointments' are available. No one is to consider dropping by the clinic without a prior appointment, not to drop off a document, not for anything. Many of its employees are working from home.

The clinic health collective urges their patients to call Ottawa Health for details regarding COVID vaccinations, but Health First urges its patients to acquire virus inoculations as speedily as possible when the opportunity rises, according to classification. These emails have been arriving fairly regularly for over a year. Just as well we haven't had a need to see a doctor in that time frame. We are, however, able to take our little dogs to the veterinarian hospital for physicals and annual shots, and to the grooming spa next door to it.

When my husband left the house soon after breakfast this morning his goal was to gas up the truck and bring home more of the same for the snow thrower. Which will likely see some significant action on the weekend, if the weather forecast is correct and no reason why it shouldn't be. He also had to drop by the bank -- closed, but the ATMs are available, and he only needed to make a withdrawal. At each ATM there is a large squirt bottle of disinfectant, over it a sign urging people to use it before and after using the machines. My husband noted those few people at the separate kiosks appear not to have read the sign. 

I realized this morning that there are many people walking singly, with or without dogs, in pairs and small family groups on the street. Normally, this very short street sees little traffic either motorized or people walking, other than its residents. Today I saw more walkers than I would normally see in a month, particularly in the winter months. Taking my cue from the walkers, I anticipated that when we went off later in the day for our usual afternoon spin through the forest trails we'd have lots of company. The 'wanderers', as my husband now calls the growing proliferation of casual hikers new to the ravine, appear to be growing in prevalence and numbers.

 

I had the impression yesterday that many among them carefully put on gloomy faces to match their unwillingness to acknowledge the presence of others ... not so much as a light-hearted 'hi!', as they pass, total failure to crack a smile when encountering one on someone else's face. So we were both pleasantly surprised on this mild-temperature day, well overcast, to encounter very few other people on the trails. Which made for a relaxed, enjoyable hour-and-a-half of leisurely strolling for Jackie and Jillie and we two.

We returned home to the fragrance of chicken soup simmering on the stove in preparation for dinner. And the sweet scent of a fruit pie still lingered as well, from the pie cooling on the kitchen countertop. I'd decided I hadn't baked a berry pie in quite awhile. Which is when those frozen mixed berries -- strawberries, raspberries, blackberries and blueberries contained in a frozen plastic pouch comes in handy for a pie filling, and tastes so very good.

Day by following day the world we live in -- at least the exterior world, outside our own intimate surroundings -- seems to become more and more unfamiliar. The world order doesn't seem quite as orderly any longer, if it ever truly was. The veneer of civilization and civility, political rectitude and mass obedience to the greater good of the wider social weal seems to be faltering, the cracks becoming wider, people more ferociously socially fractured.

Who might have imagined a scenario in plain sight building to such a momentum? That a sitting president of the most powerful country in the world would deliberately incite his personal followers to disgrace the entire nation, urging them on to demonstrate their displeasure that a slightly larger majority of the country had agreed it was time for the man to step away from authority and be replaced by someone else promising to lead his country in a more rational, equitable direction?

How could it be possible that the kind of social upheaval leading to the wreckage of a country's unity, its economic destruction, the cause of millions of its people seeking refuge abroad from the ravages of internal conflict, fatigue with deprivation, facing starvation and lack of medical care that erupted in Syria and Venezuela, Congo and South Sudan, Mali and Yemen would take place in the great United States of America?

Any sane person sensitive to the needs of any population could only feel compassion for the ordinary individual who wants nothing more than to live in harmony with others. Not the kind of harmony that China imposes on its population/s, but a human rights harmony of peace and security, with opportunities to live decent and secure lives. How strange it is that a population that has just about everything that people could conceivably require to live those decent and secure lives has become so distanced from one another, as to embrace 'conspiracy theories' and submit to racial stereotyping and victimization?

But then, who would ever have been able to imagine a world turned upside down and inside-out through the emergence of an unseen predator that seeks entrance to the human body to enable it to proliferate, replicate endlessly, seeking out an ongoing succession of new bodies to infect, a pestilence whose virulence is now so prevalently opportunistic that it has become close to unstoppable, waxing and waning like the moon, impervious to intervention.

Impacting us personally by its haunting threat and the fear that those we love may be victimized. Changing our lives in subtle ways. Today I had an 'appointment' with my cardiologist, a telephone 'consultation'. Truth to tell, much preferred than that we would leave the house, drive to a hospital, have an ecogram, meet with the doctor and generally feel out of syncronization with normalcy in any event. This was much less invasive; nothing to report, all's well.

The day proceeding as it should, all the little things one does to pass a day, habitual and necessary. Including our afternoon ramble through the woodland trails with our two little companions Jackie and Jillie. Giving them the opportunity to socialize with other dogs, large and small, increasingly being brought to the ravine which we had for so many years virtually to ourselves. 

 Not that our two little poodles are very socially inclined.  Even when Jackie watches over my shoulder perched on an arm of the family room sofa as I download photographs from my digital camera to my desktop computer where photos of him and his sister in the woods flash on the screen, he growls and snarls at the sight of other 'dogs' even if they're very familiar dogs, himself and Jillie.

It always feels good to be out there, striding along. Taking a little longer to ascend the  hills, briefly resting once we crest them before carrying on. Descending one hill, ascending another. Delving into the ravine, hearing the creek washing itself downstream. Our cleated boots crunching into the snow-and-ice-packed forest trails.

Once back home again, a rip-through-the-house run by the two little black imps that usually concludes with a vigorous tussle. And then they hunt me down in the kitchen conveying their need for a pick-up-snack. We forgot to get cauliflower when we went shopping on Tuesday, so now they're getting two salads daily, the snack and another after their dinner. Comprised of little pieces of cucumber, bell pepper, snap peas and grape tomatoes. They love their vegetables.

Like their father, all of our children have a multitude of talents and interests, exploring as much of what life has on offer as presents to them. Our youngest is a scientist, but that hasn't stopped him from becoming an expert furniture-maker, using the tools of the 19th Century -- and a potter in his spare time. His passions are the great outdoors; hiking, canoeing, kayaking, skiing, wilderness camping, but he finds time to produce objects of mundane but invaluable use. From wooden mixing spoons to rolling pins and clay teapots, pie dishes and casserole and cookie jars.

Yesterday I used one of the casserole dishes he had made for me many years ago. Cobalt blue, capacious enough for me to produce a full meal for two in its interior as I did yesterday in making a Spanish-style paela, absent lobster and clams. The only fish in it was shrimp, but there was chicken and chunks of sausage to give it texture appeal and saffron, garlic, onion, oregano and smoked paprika to give it ample taste appeal. I used an oriental-style short-grain rice, and chopped up firm tomatoes and at the last minute more or less added frozen, thawed green peas.

The end product was colourful, hot and flavourful, making for a delicious meal, though it was prefaced with chicken soup and rice, a Friday-night staple. I had wanted to make something different for New Year's day. And we had the chocolate-maraschino-cherry layer cake that I had baked earlier in the day for our dessert. We eventually pushed ourselves away from the dining room table, surfeit and pleased with the meal, a bit on the rich side and not to be repeated too often.

Overnight we had snow. Quite a bit, though nothing out of the ordinary for an Ottawa winter. Everything looked gloriously fresh and lovely, piled high with newfallen snow. We realized, after we had finished our leisurely breakfast, that the silent phantom had struck again; our walkways, porch and side entrance had all been shovelled clear of snow. I had rushed to the door, hearing Jackie and Jillie bark, but by the time they had 'noticed' it was too late and our benefactor had disappeared.

We also had an open blue sky, the sun brilliant and warming, and before we knew it the temperature had risen to zero. After dawdling about the house awhile we decided it was time to get out into the ravine after my husband shovelled out the backyard walkways for Jackie and Jillie. 

Always in the past, up until last year after a heavy snowfall so few people would enter the ravine to tramp through newfallen snow over the forest trails that soon a narrow trail ensued, bespeaking the few feet that tramped through the snow. There would be the occasional snowshoer, and a few skiers now and again, but for the most part once the snowpack began accumulating, a fairly narrow pathway would emerge, on either side of which the snowpack would build ever higher.

It won't be like that this winter. Instead of the narrow trail where others before us broke trail, there is now a wide pathway indicative of hordes of people passing through the trails. We will no longer have our treasured ravine to ourselves, that much is obvious. Since the pandemic and the lockdowns that came with it, people have been looking for diversions to occupy themselves with, and the great outdoors has beckoned. Shopping venues have closed, entertainment sites as well as exercise clubs, so the alternative has been to look elsewhere.

The old trailwalkers who have valued the ravine and its forest, taking time out every day to exercise their option to -- as it were -- commune with nature, now share the trails with the larger community who have suddenly realized the forest's value as a leisure attraction. For us personally it is an inconvenience. We can no longer take our time taking a pace that most agrees with us and our age, rest when we crest a hill, relax and enjoy the landscape in quiet contemplation as we take our time through the trails.

 

Now the object is to get around clumps of people congregating in areas they are unfamiliar with but anxious to get away from their home imprisonment, hoping to distract their children for a brief venture into the forest, entertaining other family members or friends who have popped by conveniently or inconveniently. It is the weekend, after all, the weekend of the spanking new year. Who can blame them?