Countries in the northern hemisphere are, by definition' 'winter countries'. Our winters are long and invariably snowbound and extremely cold. We're in the depth of winter here now, in the Ottawa Valley, so it's expected that we'll have a series of -20C night time temperatures. It wasn't unusual for us in the near past to have a succession of daytime lows of -20C, and that's cold. 

Ameliorated only slightly when the wind is absent and the sun is out. Ah, the sun; clear skies most often translate to very icy days. On the other hand, even the winter sun casts a wan warmth on the landscape below. Last night the temperature plunged to -20, but when we went out for our afternoon walk today it had edged up to -13C.

Well, today is Friday, my habitual baking day. While Irving disappeared into the bowels of the house where his workshop is located after he helped me clear up breakfast dishes -- he wipes I wash -- and then did the house vacuuming, I was busy as usual in the kitchen. My mental repertoire of baked goods led me to decide to bake Madeleines. They're actually coconut cupcakes, light and fluffy. But instead of smoothing an icing over the tops as I do for most other types of cupcakes, these are dipped in raspberry jam and then coconut.

It's a very nice partnership; the raspberry jam offers a tangy-sweet punch and the coconut satisfies our taste buds with their flavour and texture. When our children were small, all kinds of cupcakes delighted them. Their reaction always prompted me to find different kinds of little cakes, from those stuffed with dried fruit to others containing entire grated oranges or apples and nuts. My experimenting and their reactions was always a lot of fun to me.

When we set off for the ravine with Jackie and Jillie, another habitual routine was in exhibition. As we walk  up the street with the pups on leash, Jillie emits sharp, short little high-pitched barks intermittently until we reach the ravine entrance. Her way of stating she's here, and watch out everyone. Once we enter the forest if she detects the presence of any of her friends wherever they may happen to be another series of barks ensues; once again telling the world that she's there and we are too, especially the Cookie Man.

This icy day, not many were out on the trails. Our faces froze, and we loped along in our version of an energetic, body-warming tramp through the trails. Despite which I could feel the cold penetrating through the three layers of sweaters under my down-filled jacket. We congratulated ourselves that there was no wind, since that would have given us a much more brutally-penetrating cold to contend with.

Although the puppies were wearing their boots, at one point Jackie began lifting one of his back legs, as he hopped along, a signal that the cold was giving him some discomfort. This was a circuit we took in record time; exiting the ravine, a quick stop at the group mailbox, then a quick-march down the street to our house, warm and comforting and redolent with the flavour of a simmering dinnertime chicken soup.

 

At this point in our lives it's hard to remember much less imagine how we managed to do so many things while we were both in the workforce. We'd leave the house early in the morning, return in the late afternoon, and find time to go out to the forest for an hour's hike, prepare dinner, read and relax, and then do the same thing again the following day. Weekends were for shopping for groceries, cleaning the house, looking after the garden, and either taking a hike up in Gatineau Park, Quebec's priceless nature preserve, or do some canoeing in one of its lakes. We certainly crammed a lot into each day.

We still do, relatively speaking. Only now the entire day is ours to do with as we wish. And even so, retaining old familiar habits of getting out into nature, gardening, looking after our little dogs, cleaning the house, meal preparation, takes all of those hours now. The difference in how time is used is our attention to the Internet. We spend time on social media platforms, as well as blogging (me) and viewing old detective series (Irving) along with watching academic lectures and news debates.

We never did spend very much time watching events and entertainment on television. And now, for the past decade and more, though we have the service in a package that includes land line and Internet, we never bother with television, much less Netflix or anything similar. It's a medium of news and entertainment we determined quite a while ago that we could dispense with. We've never felt that way about the print news and look forward to our two daily newspaper arrivals.

Our habitual routines of importance to us, another matter altogether. Irving spent several hours in his workshop today. He's putting together another door as a frame for the latest stained glass window he conceived and created. It's a time-consuming, meticulous but rewarding art form and our house is full of stained glass, covering windows and encased in inner household doors. Because Monday is cleaning day, he also did the vacuuming to spare me the work, leaving the dusting, mopping and floor-washing to me.

Today turned out just as cold as yesterday and while there was wind it wasn't as brutally cutting as yesterday's. Moreover, the sky completely cleared early in the morning and remained that way for the balance of the day. When we took Jackie and Jillie out for their  usual afternoon walk through the woodland  trails, it was -7C and though not much sun filters down on the trails in the forest interior, the wind wasn't as much of a challenge as it had been yesterday. The trails have become a little more hard-packed and that too was a plus.

It's around this time in the winter that we begin to see small flocks of robins flying around the creek, settling briefly on protuberances such as rocks or fallen trees close to or over the creekbed and flying off together, then returning together in graceful waves of flight. Just as we wonder when we see squirrels or rabbits in such bitterly cold weather, it never ceases to amaze us that chickadees, nuthatches, cardinals, woodpeckers, crows and robins manage to endure our winters.

Jackie and Jillie certainly don't mind the cold, nor the icy fingers of wind that penetrate every nook and cranny, every fold of a garment. they rush about, far outdistancing us until they're called back, to remain closer to where we are; our locomotion is far more measured than theirs. Dressed protectively in their snug winter coats and tiny paws encased in rubber boots they can withstand the elements of familiar winter days.