Previously, the first and only time we'd seen her was two weeks earlier.  Obviously confused, not knowing which way to turn, a slight young woman out alone trying to make sense of the trails in the ravine.  We introduced ourselves and explained, after hearing her say where it was she wanted to go, how to proceed. We walked along for a short while with her, to aid her in the direction she wanted to go.  She had recently moved to the area and was enchanted by the closeness of nature to where she now lived.

And then yesterday afternoon there she was, seated with two very young children atop one of the hills, a man standing nearby, as we ascended, calling out to us.  Remember me? she asked.  The two children looked at us with the curiosity of bright kids, the two-year-old busy unpeeling a banana, soon to move on to a plastic bagful of cherries.  Her four-year-old sister babbling on about what they'd seen thus far.  Both little girls blessed by genetics with a full cap of shining black hair.

Their father reminded me of a bravura character out of a Kurasawa film, but I've always found it difficult to distinguish facial characteristics between Japanese, Chinese, Koreans.  We were soon to discover that they were Chinese, likely from Hong Kong, simply by having their given names revealed to us: Oliver and Millie, with the penchant from that community for adopting formal British-sounding names.

The unending conversation and observations of the precocious little girls was captivating.  They were fascinated by everything around them; when Stumpy approached us for peanuts they were delighted.  When we showed them a juvenile owl looking solemnly down from us all from its perch above the creek, they were ecstatic.  The older little girl began scattering sunflower seeds on the trail.  I suggested to her that she place them off the trail where passersby wouldn't crush them and the birds and squirrels might discover them.  She was not entirely convinced.

A lightning-swift visit.  They came, they're gone.  Arrived last night just before eleven.  Departed this morning just after nine.  Not much time together, but it's surprising how much talking can take place within the space of a few hours. There'll be a longer time together on the return journey.  Then we'll have most of a week to plumb the depths of what has been occurring since last we were together.

She finds it difficult to leave her pastoral work behind.  Which is ample reason for their late arrival.  It's just too difficult to leave, despite all the pre-arrangements that go into the enterprise of taking a break from ministering to those who require constant support, both emotional and religiously-inspired.

I had everything at the ready before their arrival, pre-prepared and -cooked to just put it all together as soon as they were ready to sit down and eat.  After taking as much of their baggage which they would need in from the car, which they had parked in the garage; our own vehicle remaining in the driveway, they were set.  Which precludes the necessity of emptying the entire car of their possessions to ensure no break-ins occur.

They're on their way to Nova Scotia.  They'll stop this evening at a provincial park in New Brunswick, where they'll camp out for the night before taking up their journey again to Nova Scotia.  She is faithful to her vow to be with her mother twice yearly.

She is the most intelligent, capable woman I've ever known.  Nothing escapes her, and there isn't much she doesn't know.  That is inclusive of culinary arts and modern trends in social customs.  She shares, with our oldest son, musical talent, both playing a variety of musical instruments, both traditional and heritage.  But while she ministers to peoples' souls, he explores the heavens with his astronomical commitment.

Each of them have degrees in history from the medieval era, and an oeuvre of academic papers to reflect that.  They're like shooting stars in our lives. 

The Fable of Arachne, by Velazquez

Did the pantheon of immortals over the ages create mortals, or did mortals create the immortals?  Did the gods imbue humans with emotional characteristics reflecting their own, or is the reverse true, that mortals, in attempting to reach plausible explanations for the mysterious and terrifying aspects of nature and human interaction with nature, create faith in immortals?

In any event, it is the human creation of the myths of the immortals as manipulating all that occurs that many attribute to science and nature, powerful beings that look down on the activities of mere humans, that has left us with literature that is truly fascinating at a corner of humankind's emotional needs to reassure us in a world that seems at times threatening and fearful.  

Attributing occurrences both wonderful and strange to beings susceptible to emotions similar to ours seems to give them an aura of fallibility and occasional kindness to humans despite their status as representing the all-powerful.  

We live with our illusions; nature herself is universal, omnipotent and neutral.  The gods, by contrast, can sometimes be viewed as sympathetic to frail humanity, aping them in so many ways.

On the other hand, they are portrayed in ancient Greek legend as temperamentally egotistical, sharing the frail emotional faults and insecurities of the humans who imagined them into being, whom even the rationally brilliant Greek philosophers retained faith in.  Fearing their tempestuously jealous relationship both to one another up above, in their divine realms, and down below, with humans.

The egotistical jealousy of a goddess invoked when she was made aware of a weaving talent not only matching her own renown, but outdistancing it, ensured that a young and artistically outstanding talent was removed from competition as a human, transformed into a spider where she was permitted to continue weaving her tensile-strength, creatively beautiful, enchanting silk webs.

My husband, noticing a minuscule spider had built an equally-small and perfect web on an outside corner of one our windows, and seeing a number of tiny flies caught in its web, offered a gift to the tiny arachnid this morning, a fly that had ventured into our house.  The flies we consider expandable, since they are capable of carrying disease, whereas spiders are known for their clean-living habits, making short work of pests.

When Button first came into our lives we were both still in the paid workforce.  It was agony leaving her alone during the day while we went off to work.  Returning in the late afternoon/early evening, to rescue her from her solitary confinement.  She was dreadfully anxious about having us with her.  As a normally curious puppy she wanted to explore and to test the confines of her narrow world, but she had no wish to do so alone.

We decided we would never leave her alone if we could help it, when we weren't at work.  So she would accompany us everywhere.  When the food shopping had to be done one of us would stay with her, waiting for the other to accomplish that weekly task.  Otherwise, she quickly adapted to our method of bringing her everywhere with us, comfortably seated in a carrying bag slung over my husband's or my shoulder.

It always surprised me when we were approached by complete strangers, attracted to the sight of her.  And this happened so often that someone would approach us to coo over her, and then relate the heart-breaking story of having had a small black poodle just like Button, and their grief over having lost her to old age and the inevitable.  That would always startle me, even though one might imagine I'd become accustomed to it.

Now I understand the deep well-spring of their memories, their grief.  Because, of course, we've experienced it first-hand ourselves.  But would I approach someone with a young dog and burden them in that manner?  I would not.  I would not wish to.  Not only because our loss is a very private one, but because it's simply unfair to others.

Yet I can also imagine that all those people over the years past who did that with us didn't really mean to.  They simply reacted to an emotion stirring deep within their consciousness, and the overwhelming sense of loss brought vividly to the fore.  And then tried to share their loss, meaning to convey how very much it deprived them. 

It cannot be done.

There are those who are drawn to the serene beauty and isolating comfort of living in the countryside.  There are the obvious benefits to nature-lovers and those who find the bustle, noise and crowded conditions of urban living not to their liking.  And then there are the irritations involved with not being on an urban power grid or sewage system, or water pipeline. 

Being dependent on providing the basics of living without the widespread assurances usually associated with urban living is not to everyone's taste.  Digging a deep enough well, hoping the water table will not be too impacted by drought; requiring your own septic system which needs periodic emptying, contemplating long rush-hour drives to and from employment in the city.

If there are power outages in the countryside they come with the additional problem of being unable to access your own well water because the pump is dependent on drawing electricity.  That's a huge minus.  Another is not having relatively low-cost high-speed Internet service.  Worse, unable to tap into an otherwise-accessible-to-city-folk cheap form of home heating; natural gas.

Weighed against the attraction of seeing a wide variety of bird species make use of winter bird feeders, watching small family gatherings of hummingbirds who return to spend their summers year upon year, and species that urban dwellers can only hope to see, like orioles and blue jays, and cedar waxwings, among countless others.

Squirrels and chipmunks, beaver, turtles, deer, raccoons and any number of other wildlife species turn up regularly, particularly if there's a wetland on your property.

Our daughter's home is in the countryside.  She has a log home originally built as a schoolhouse in 1864, since modernized and built upon and upgraded.  This summer her grass is golden thatch due to the dearth of rain we've been receiving, particularly in her county.  When, two weeks back, we experienced a violent thunderstorm, thousands of people were deprived of power for days, including her.  No well water access, no electrical light, no power.  But her telephone worked.

Unfortunately, some of her neighbours had no land-line telephone service.  So when Bell Canada sent out technicians to fix their service, they doomed hers, somehow.  And in the two weeks since, although technicians have come out time and again in braces no less, they have restored service, which immediately upon their leaving, lapses again.

On Monday we sent in our usual annual donation to the municipality's Humane Society.  Just recently it had built a larger, purpose-built building to house their operations and all the domestic animals that are brought to it for shelter and eventual dispersion within the community.  The new building is far more useful to the needs that they accommodate.  We have always felt a need to support the work they do, as do so many others.

Just three days later, to our surprise, there was a letter from them in our mailbox, and we speculated that it could not possibly be a receipt in such a short turn-around time.  As it happened, it was not.  It was a short and personal missive, explaining that the veterinarian clinic that had looked after our Button for almost twenty years had sent in a memorial donation on news of our having lost her.

Which was very kind and thoughtful of them, not surprising since there are, among the plentiful staff located there, quite kind and thoughtful people.

It did not, however, give us comfort, though we felt gratitude.  Instead, acute feelings of loss flooded our consciousness, as though we were beginning the grieving process all over again. 

He is an inveterate, enthusiastic shopper, as restless about poking about in various types of commercial establishments, as he is about employing himself busily on any number of projects he takes on out of curiosity and need, as the case may be.  If he embarks on a brief mission to pick up some hardware, he will also, most often, pop into nearby supermarkets or other purveyors of hard goods. 

I never know what he'll bring home; exotic cheeses, a basket of peaches (when we're in possession of a half-basket as it is), an artisanal bread, some new plants for the garden that have been half-priced by a nursery attempting to move the last of their spring-summer gardening stock, or a piece of outside furniture, which is what he brought home the morning before yesterday.

He had previously casually mentioned that it might be a good idea to replace the ornamental wrought-iron seating pieces we have in the small piazza he built years ago, in the centre of our gardens in front of the house, with a more comfortable accommodation that could seat two.  Even in very hot weather that particular area has a micro-climate of its own; it is shaded, far cooler than the backyard and there are always cooling breezes passing through. 

Along with the opportunity to catch glimpses, and sometimes more, of the ruby-throated hummingbirds that tend to flit around the flowers in the garden.  With the additional bonus of viewing the colourful gardens about us where the seating arrangement has been placed, enjoying the floral bouquet they present as they pass through their flowering periods.  Ours is a very quiet street with very little traffic beyond the residents' coming and going.

So, yesterday morning he set about moving the other outside furniture that he meant to replace with the new faux-bamboo seating arrangement, spent time putting the outdoor loveseat together, and we've now got a new area to refresh ourselves in the out-of-doors, an alternative to the deck, where sounds of pleasurable laughter from the rambunctious children behind us disporting themselves in their swimming pool are often intrusive to our relaxation.  Sounds anything but unpleasant, but unamenable to our needs.