There was a time -- and it must be at least a dozen years ago now -- when one of our neighbours who lives down the street as a regular daily trail-walker in the ravine used to take a break halfway through his ramble, sitting on a bench overlooking one of the bridges we cross to get from one point to another over Cardinal Creek. We'd often walk with him, talk with him on the trails as much as on the street, though we seldom see him out and about now. He's into his late-80s.

He had a bout with cancer, with heart disease, has a bad back and no longer gets about as he once did. He was one of the most familiar faces on the street, acquainted with everyone, knowing everyone's background, prepared to talk up a storm of impressions and ideas with anyone who was willing. He also had a companion dog at one time, a shambling female golden retriever, and lost her to cancer just before his own health began seriously wavering. His wife, quite a bit younger than him in a second marriage, balked at having another dog, knowing he was in no shape to look after another one, and she had other plans for herself. She's given to taking at least several trips a year to exotic places, and he never accompanies her.

We were accustomed at one time to seeing him walking with others as well, when we were newer to the area and he had experienced several years' residence before us. He also knew everyone who used the trails at that time. And their dogs. It seemed odd at first when he no longer ventured out into the ravine, because he was so given to the beauty of the place and had volunteered as someone who would keep the municipality informed with respect to the state of the ravine, reporting trees that had fallen across the trails, or that someone had been in with an ax and partially chopped down a tree, or that neighbourhood children appeared to have attempted a fire.

Today, a windy, cool and beautifully bright day, that bench beckoned us. So, as he had done so long ago, we sat on "Barry's bench", because I needed a break and it seemed a pleasant enough thing to do. We sat until I 'caught my second wind' and we chatted together, and our two little dogs sat with us. The sun glinted off the ice limning branches and conifer needles. We'd had freezing rain this morning, and then the temperature dropped. Creating a landscape of ice-covered surfaces. Which also made parts of the trails icy and slippery as a result.

And then, on we went to complete the circuit that takes us roughly an hour to complete daily.We had the ravine to ourselves, today. No one else was out and about, and that's fairly unusual.

It's an old relationship of well over forty years' duration when two young men in university made a fast bond of friendship. I met him sporadically over the years. Of course since I am thirteen years older than my youngest brother, the age-gap meant that we didn't socialize, so it was at odd times we might come across one another and certainly not frequently. The last time was at my mother's funeral. And that itself was almost twenty years ago.

My brother's nearest and closest friend and my brother didn't share university classes. My brother became a scientist and his friend a lawyer. He was a flamboyant young man, tall and slender, and cut a dashing figure particularly when he affected a cape. He shares, to some degree, my brother's overt and always-a-quip-at-the-ready humour, I believe.

So when our granddaughter expressed more than passing interest in this friend of one of her grand-uncles and wistfully imagined meeting him, I thought it interesting. And then in a conversation yesterday she went so far as to mention the man again with the thought that it might be helpful to her in a guidance-mentoring way if she were to be actually introduced to him.

I said I would speak with my brother about it. Instead, I wrote an email directly to this friend of my brother's, introducing the idea of a possible connection. I informed him of her age, that she is a university student and planning to achieve a law degree. Her interest just happens to be the practise of criminal law. And he is a lawyer specializing in criminal law.

And he responded swiftly in the affirmative. And now the rest is up to my granddaughter.

In a sense our trepidatious fears over the potential of one or the other of our two puppies swallowing something that might be harmful to them became a reality yesterday.

In concern that they continue to pluck away at anything they see at ground level with the intention of eating whatever it is, my husband even took the leaf blower out of the garden shed, using it to blow the detritus falling from cedars and spruces onto the walkways of the backyard and away from easy pickings for our two little devils.

Despite which, and despite a layer of newfallen snow, Jackie managed to grasp at something which had an immediate reaction. We think it might have been an ice-encrusted clump of cedar. Suddenly he began violently retching, as though desperately attempting to clear his air passages. We could see nothing peering down his little throat, and a finger trying to dislodge anything that might be obstructing his throat resulted in nothing but more of that violent retching. Eventually it subsided, and what remained was a dry hacking cough repeated continually.

We hoped it would pass, that whatever he had swallowed would finally go down successfully. In the next few hours he slept peacefully, but when he awoke that dry rasping, pained cough repeated and repeated. We decided to take him to the emergency veterinarian hospital downtown for a veterinarian to check him physically, trained in the profession as we are not.

Having a veterinarian check him over did give us a measure of reassurance. Although what had occurred to elicit such a violent reaction can only be hypothesized. We decided against an X-ray, decided against having him take any drugs. I'd given him some coconut oil to help soothe his throat before we'd left home. The vet agreed that might be useful. Our daughter later recommended that the properties inherent in emu oil would be useful, to administer it three times daily.

Jackie had a good night, but unusually for him, he snored throughout, indicating some obstructions yet in his airways, if only the result of an injury in there, that has to heal. Despite his paroxysms of repeated retching, he still looked about on the ground for additional bits of detritus to pick up and eat.

At the age of five months one wouldn't expect a human infant to know what is good and what is bad for it, and we don't anticipate much from the dawning intelligence of a puppy, either.

Friday 13th? Well, not yesterday. In the sense that everything seemed to go just right. We can always find small irritations throughout the course of any day, but yesterday seemed like quite a nice day. Perhaps for some it wasn't, but nothing to particularly set that day apart for nasty events. Jack and Jill behaved perfectly, for the most part.

In the morning I took a deep middling-sized pot, poured in 2/3 cup of granulated sugar, sprinkled two large tablespoons of cornstarch over, mixed that with about 1/4 cup of cranberry juice. Then I took five large Empire apples, crisp and juicy, and washed them but didn't peel them, and cut them into chunks into the pot. Then I set the pot on the kitchen stove to slowly stir occasionally until the apples were partly cooked and the sugar/cranberry juice combination created a nice glaze over the apples. Turning the heat off under the pot I dropped two tablespoons of butter over it all, to melt as the apples cooled.

And then we had our breakfast leaving ample time for the pie filling to cool. After cleaning up from breakfast I prepared the pie crust, with all-purpose flour, pinch of salt, Crisco shortening, lemon juice and cold water, taking care not to add more water than required for a resulting dough on the dry side still amenably pliable, and given to rolling out for a top and bottom pie crust.

I sprinkled cinnamon and cloves, and instead of raisins, sprinkled dried cranberries into the apples instead. The resulting pie was perfect; the interior sweet enough but not too sweet, the apples chunky but well cooked, the complementary spices and cranberry a perfect companion for the apples, and the crust flaky and light. My husband had Oka cheese alongside his serving of pie for dessert.

Using my favourite pie dish, one that our youngest son made for us many years ago, pies bake to a perfect consistency.

We're at that point in the season where we're poinging from spring back to winter again, and today has been one of those winter days. Not anything, mind, like the numbingly frigid days we had in February, but in the same token not much like the mild temperature and full sun we experienced yesterday and the past few days before, when walking up the snow-cleared street to the ravine entrance was a pleasure, clear blue sky above.

It was a pleasure today too, but the road is once again thick with snow and the temperature is decidedly colder, thanks to a cold weather system that trekked in last night greeting us then when we ventured out last thing before turning in for the night, with snow-pebbles. On the other hand, the cold isn't more than we can stand, and the fresh-fallen snow creates its own brightness despite the lack of sun today.

Better still, we had a delightful walk with Jack and Jill since all the detritus has been nicely buried in the swiftly accumulating thick blanket of new snow so they weren't given to continually leaping forward to swiftly take possession every few seconds of some new gustatory challenge we'd prefer they not ingest. And I believe they appreciated the quality of the walk as well, where we weren't constantly chiding them and gently pulling back on the leash in frustrated efforts to keep them from eating the kind of roughage they don't really need.

We came across one of our ravine friends walking his dog, and Jack and Jilly were beyond delighted to meet up with Jasper again. Jasper is a part pitbull, part retriever, part German Shepherd and he's a sweetheart of a dog. He's five years old, patient and good-tempered, always happy to see us, and prepared to cut our two little imps plenty of slack.

So yes, the walk today in the ravine, with snow piling on, was gorgeous beyond description.

They're both still lean and lanky little mites. This, despite their astonishingly prodigious appetites. When Button and Riley were puppies it took desperate wile to encourage them to eat their meals. And even then they ate sparingly, though with infinitely more gusto when treats were added to their diet. They loved vegetables and for the most part little salads comprised their evening desserts once the main portion of their meal was consumed. In the morning, tiny bits of shredded cheese sprinkled over their meal encouraged their appetites.

With these two puppies, Jack and Jill of excitable temperament, albeit calm interludes, no amount of food offered them commensurate with their stage in life and breed seems enough to satisfy them; they appear never satiated. Their portions are far larger than anything we ever attempted to feed Button and Riley with their picky attitudes to food. Jack and Jill will eat just about anything. And they do indeed eat just about anything.

Their rapacious appetite leads to utter distraction. When they're taken out to the backyard at regular intervals the need to evacuate takes second place to foraging. Even dead spruce needles that the wind sprinkles all over the backyard -- and inclusive of small pieces of living spruce with the needles still intact on the minuscule branches that hold them -- are fodder for their appetite.

Jack has the slight edge on Jill as far as height goes, but she has the advantage in weight, and it's more than slight, although she is still lean enough so that her spine feels sharp under our fingers as do her ribs. She's better adjusted than he is when we're on the ravine trails, looking about her with interest, while he is absorbed with scoping out any potential bits of edible detritus. And to him any detritus is edible with the exception of long pine needles, long dead.

We just wonder whether the habit of the breeder to leave bowls of kibble out continually rather than use any particular feeding schedule, added to the fierce competition that exists between the twins, represents the core of the problem, as we see it. When we first brought them home they were utterly frantic to get at their food bowls at meal time. And they still are, but not to the same degree.

And the incredible rate at which they whoosh down their food has marginally decreased as our relationship progresses. Since they're still very much in their puppy learning stages we hope that the assurances related to the discipline of on-time meals of ample dimensions will gradually wean them off their immediacy of consumption, leading them to a calmer state of expectation.

Finally, spring has placed a tentative toe into the door that winter has left ajar. Two weeks left before the Spring Equinox is upon us, but the ferocious winter that clamped down so icily upon us in February has gracefully permitted March to welcome milder temperatures. Snow is melting off our roof, and the centre of the road of the street our house is located on is finally free of snow and ice; we can walk on the bare paving.

Snowmelt is running down the street into catchbasins, and crows are circling overhead. The backyard now actually has winter-suffering grass appearing where the snow has melted. Jack and Jill hardly know what to make of it all; suddenly where everything was a monochromatic blanket of white, there is now colour and texture and intriguing smells, along with inviting bits and pieces of shrubs they can now reach to chew on to their hearts' delight.

We've got an absolutely clear ocean of blue above, and the sun is plugging away melting the icy atmosphere into a welcome blessing of warmth kissing our cheeks. As glorious a day was yesterday today is even more so. My husband is out in the driveway, washing his truck. Earlier he had washed layers of grime off the car; everything looks sparking-clean.

In the ravine it's tough going, with boots sinking into the melting snow. All the snow has fallen off the trees, and the snow melting on the ground is revealing rather un-polite detritus. Plenty of smells being released to intrigue the powerful capacities of little dogs' noses. We thought it was warm yesterday, so warm that a quite insistent wind felt like a caressing breeze. Today, however, it seems even warmer, the wind more gentle. Yesterday's high was an astounding plus-8, and today's a degree cooler yet it seems balmier.

We heard a pileated woodpecker calling from far-off within the ravine. Saw no other people rambling about in there, nor their companion dogs; we were earlier than usual, and most people tend to go out in the afternoons. Yesterday on our ramble we came across many of our acquaintances, stopped to talk interminably, as Jack and Jill made the acquaintance of other dogs, delighted at the opportunity.

Today, though, the ravine was our private preserve.