We weren't sure how long the drive would take. Particularly since we'd made the appointment for Tuesday, the day following the long Easter week-end, when we were fairly certain that the Ottawa highways would be stuffed with traffic, since people tend to return to work after a long week-end, and the day following call in sick. So it seems. And sure enough, traffic was backed up and slow.

It hardly mattered all that much in any event, since we'd left ample time for ourselves. The appointment was for 11:00 a.m. and we left the house just a tad before eight. We had time to spare.
We'd originally thought of cancelling the appointment since the weather forecast we'd heard a few days earlier warned of a considerable snowstorm. But it was amended a day later, and the possibility of snow had been reduced to 40%, and the temperature would rise to three degrees, under an afternoon sun.

So off we set on this preliminary visit to the Ogdensburg veterinarian service we'd heard such raves about. We had decided to take Jack and Jill there to be neutered and spayed rather than have it done in Ottawa. For one thing, we wanted it done by laser; more efficient, less pain, swifter recovery. In Ottawa only two veterinarian clinics offer laser surgery. And they feel entitled in charging about ten times what the service in Ogdensburg costs.

Have the spay done here and pay over a thousand dollars; the neutering a hundred dollars less. Do it in Ogdensburg, and the cost is $135 for each of our puppies. So many people had advised us to look into the services there, so we looked on line and liked what we saw, spoke by telephone and made arrangements to get physicals for our puppies and bloodwork done the week before scheduling surgery.

Today was the day for the physical and bloodwork, though we were advised by the clinic it could all be done in one fell swoop the very day of the surgery. We thought we'd feel more comfortable doing it this way.

We discovered that although Ottawa had managed to escape the snowstorm, the further south we drove, evidence arose that the snowstorm did strike regardless, and from Oxford Station to Cornwall it was a white, white world once again. A surpassingly lovely landscape. Which made the drive all the more pleasant. When we got to the Rideau River crossing, the sky turned dark again. And when we arrived at the St. Lawrence River, a white fog engulfed the river itself. When we drove over the Seaway International Bridge, a long, looong, affair linking Ontario to New York, visibility on the bridge was perfect, but nothing could be seen glancing over the sides toward the St. Lawrence.

The veterinarian hospital was easy to find, a rural practise on a country road just outside town, aptly enough named Town & Country Veterinarian Hospital. When we arrived there was no one else in the waiting room. We were over an hour early for that appointment. Because it was a quiet time, however, one of the veterinarians saw us almost immediately and checked out our little imps and had bloodwork done.

Activity in the place became frenetic soon after our arrival, and the waiting room swiftly filled with people and their dogs awaiting their appointments. We came across another couple with two dogs, also from the Ottawa area. And we found that the local people who drifted in with their pets extremely courteous making an effort to acknowledge the presence of other people. 

By the time we returned the route we had taken to get there, the snow that had so brilliantly enveloped the landscape had melted under the gaze of the now fully-exposed sun. We'll be returning in a week's time for their little scamps' surgery.

Looks as though we're about to get shut out of the ravine again, at least in the short term. When the construction of the new bridges took place late last fall into early winter all the heavy equipment used in there had churned up the trails into deep muck. It's either muck there now or treading on large sharp chunks of granite, nowhere near resembling the size of stone (gravel) usually meant for trails, whose purpose had been to give traction to the tracked machines churning through the muck, up and down hills. What was left when the work crews finally bid the ravine adieu once the bridges were up, was a massive mess.

As soon as serious snowfall began covering the trails, however, they became more usable, and remained so throughout the winter months and on into early spring. Although there's ample snow and ice left in the ravine, there are areas where the sun has no problem melting snow, even with our cooler-than-normal spring, leaving bare spots of muck too deep and nasty for us to want to continue trying to skirt them. Many of the trails have become slick with ice, no problem for us with our cleats, but difficult for trail walkers without them.

So, we decided to return to our alternate choice. At least we have an alternate. And it's more than passable. There, where no construction vehicles have entered because there was no need for them to, we've ventured once again. It almost seemed as though Jack and Jill in their six-month-wisdom recognized that we were in a different place. They seemed mesmerized by the different scents to be found everywhere. And Jack, miraculously, was so busy sniffing about it seems he forgot, at least for that walk, to pick up all the choice bits of detritus that litters the forest floor, chewing away to his heart's delight, and that was a relief for me, allowing me to relax my vigil, and the constant tugs and no's became unnecessary. A delightful walk, altogether, renewing our acquaintance with that alternate trail system.

Jack and Jill were temporarily mystified when we had to cross the main artery that separates the ravine, unaccustomed to loud noises of traffic and the very different atmosphere. On our way back we came across another person we've latterly become acquainted with, and his German Pointer. Who was less than enthusiastic about once again greeting our ecstatic little powerhouses, prepared to leap with pleasure all over the dog that stands like Goliath, towering over them.

Our granddaughter, like tens of thousands of other first-year Canadian university students is currently undergoing the stress and anxiety of wracking their memories and cognitive abilities inherent in writing final semester exams. How else prove to the certification authorities that students have managed to receive and successfully grapple with the information related to their studies that they must make a part of their intelligence capabilities?

The long-lasting memory of the traumatic process will haunt them for the rest of their lives. I was not myself, in my teen years able to pursue an academic education beyond Grade ten, when my parents informed me I had been exposed to sufficient educational opportunities at age 15 to enable me to get out in the workforce to begin earning a living, and in the process, help my parents provide for me and my younger siblings. Despite which I felt sufficiently troubled by the emotions that exams up to that point in my schooling had profoundly affected me with, to recall them in nightmares decades afterward. Even though the disbelief and disappointment of knowing my school days were over had assailed me deeply at the time.

Now, however, the academic and scientific community dealing with human psychology is reaching a conclusion that imposing the rigours of exams on developing brains and psyches may not be the absolute best way of determining which among the students they are aimed at have excelled at learning and which have not. "We are in the midst of an educational revolution. Everything's going to change now", stated Stuart Shanker, distinguished research professor of philosophy and psychology at York University, a leading figure in educational reform.

While Alberta appears to be leading the way, preparing to depend more on appraisals of daily work than standardized high school exams, it appears that Ontario is right behind with a pilot project relating to a new evaluation model, in view of the high-stress exams actually resulting in a false idea of a student's capabilities. Florida has eliminated a major Grade 11 exam; Colorado, Washington, Arizona and others are moving toward similar conclusions.

Recent scientific investigation has highlighted stress, cognition, memory and attention require a different evaluative approach in concluding what students have been able individually to absorb and retain of their studies. "It is difficult to communicate the pain, suffering, and misery suffered by high-test-anxious subjects before, during, and after major evaluative experiences", Moshe Zeidner, education professor at University of Haifa, Israel wrote in his book Test Anxiety.

"There is a time and a place for diagnostics, but a sole reliance on them does not seem wise to me", Sian Beilock, Human Performances Lab head at the University of Chicago who researches cognitive performance under pressure, stated. The stress inherent in exams, Professor Beilock points out, "rob us of our limited ability to pay attention to what we need to". Concern associated with pressure-performances "soak up the resources that we could be using to focus on a test."

Support for the complete relaxation of traditional methods of evaluating students' success in retaining the knowledge they have been exposed to is not by any means universal. "We are now reaping the consequences of that emphasis [the 'self-esteem' movement]. We've not trained our kids to deal with that kind of stress ... We've done a generation of kids a disservice by giving them so much self-esteem that they can't deal with failure", claims Doretta Wilson, executive director of the Society for Quality Education, decrying the 'Montessorification' of higher education.

But the tide does appear to be turning. Likely it will do so far sooner in the West than in the East where the rigours of tests and exams winnow out students incapable of performing under pressure. And photographs of desperate parents clambering up the walls of educational institutions in India -- to try to pass exam solutions through to their children sweating inside to respond to critical questions whose success will determine their futures -- will continue to amaze others untouched by such a phenomenon in their lives, looking on with disbelief at what people will expose themselves to in hopes of inspiring their young toward success.

AP Photo/Press Trust of India    In this Wednesday, March 18, 2014 photo, Indians climb the wall of a building to help students appearing in an examination in Hajipur, in the eastern Indian state of Bihar.

So, I've sent a lengthy article on the topic along to my granddaughter in an email attachment. And have little doubt that it will fail dismally to amuse, entertain or instruct her, let alone infuse her with hope for the future, while she is bending her considerable brain-power to its limits attempting to achieve the high marks she knows will guide her own aspirational future.

We are a caring society. It is impressed upon us by our inner compass that we will derive little comfort in living well while knowing that others around us do not, due to many reasons, some they might have had control of if they determined to face their destiny responsibly, and some experiencing events they would never have been able to conceive of happening to them, much less succeed in handling, when circumstances occur that we are helpless to overcome.

Such societies as ours then, do our best, or think we do, to help the unfortunate. From setting up food banks, from creating social service agencies paid for by the public dollar, from creating welfare that permits people to live a taxpayer-subsidized existence, from private interests and religious institutions planning emergency shelters for the homeless. From those in the healing and legal professions offering services pro bono to those in need. From people taking the initiative to let their consciences guide them in providing their charitable funds to any number of agencies set up to serve society.

Bruce Boyd is blind and relies on his four-year old guide dog Ziggy to help him get around.   Wayne Cuddington / Ottawa Citizen

In Ottawa lately, one story was published of a 59-year-old man, blind, suffering from Hepatitis C resulting from a blood transfusion during eye surgery in 1980. He lives with the assistance of a $1000 monthly Ontario disability pension. He receives an additional $77 to help him pay for the care of his guide dog, Ziggy. Juggling his expenses is a challenge for Bruce Boyd. All the more so since his seeing-eye dog had some serious health issues in the last year.

A nearby veterinary clinic had looked after the black Lab's medical condition, and for that care its owner was billed $4000. But when his ability to pay such an enormous sum for a man living under the poverty line was revealed, the veterinarian clinic cut $1,662 from his bill. Leaving him with a still-substantial bill to pay for a man chronically short of money.

People in the area swiftly responded to the story. As donations began showing up at the newspaper office, the man recommended that any such donations be made directly to the animal hospital. If a surplus accumulated, it could be used to help other people in a situation similar to his own; disabled, with the need to devote care and sustenance to an animal devoted to helping them live their lives as normally as possible.

Finally, the longed-for arrival of an unmistakably spring-like day. Just in time for Passover/Easter; nature's gift to us. And don't we appreciate it?

 

We are able to sit out in the backyard's micro climate in shirt sleeves, no jackets, unaccustomed freedom after a long, hard, extremely cold winter. And when we ventured into the ravine for a ramble, knowing full well there would be mucky areas we'd encounter along with the icy slides due to melting snow, we knew also we'd be warm enough with the 14-degree-high this day would bring, to shrug off winter jackets and pull on light spring jackets instead.

What we were wearing was echoed in what Jack and Jill also wore; light covering to protect from the cold emanating from the thick layers of snow and ice underfoot, but adequate to the ambient temperature regardless. This turned out to be a long, long walk. Before we even got to the ravine entrance there were neighbours to stop and talk with awhile. And once in the ravine there were other acquaintances whom we came across and then too there were lengthy pauses while we shared animated conversations about many things - but weather is always at the top of the talking-agenda.

When we arrived back home finally, we decided since it was so sunny with light and heat streaming through our windows and the house feeling really comfortable, to give Jack and Jill a bath. And so we did. They weren't sure what they thought of the experience; immersion in warm water is a new sensation for them, but being wrapped in soft towels made up for their initial trepidation. And then, romping about afterward and lazing in the sun worked very well indeed.

For tonight: pumpkin pie I baked after breakfast, a challah the ingredients for which my husband put in the breadmaker, turkey breast, roasted potatoes, roasted cauliflower and tomatoes roasted with plenty of fresh basil and onion in olive oil.

The Dysfunctional Human Condition

Grievances that outlive their usefulness stall human beings in their journey toward progress. The non-aligned countries of the United Nations, the indigenous peoples who have in the past suffered the indignities and humiliation of colonization, the black African communities who were rounded up for slavery by dominating Arabs and Western colonizers, the North- and South-American Amerindians, the large black American demographic and the late-comer Palestinians, their embrace of their stale-dated victimhood has served to ensure they would far more often prefer to wallow in self-pity and a violent back-lash long after it served any purpose, than to actually further their conditions by a determined attempt to free themselves from the anger that permeates their cultures and forge on to make a place for themselves in the modern world.

Tribal, ethnic, clan and religious differences in a wider world that has long since viewed its former past as colonizers as distasteful to the progressive image they now have of themselves, only serve to continue disadvantaging those groups whose ongoing and burning resentment of having been made subservient to and dependent on others who traditionally dominated their cultures, their societies, their economies, their right to self-government.

The energy spent on hatred and blame, on the resentment that leads to ongoing dependence on placing guilt on the successor generations of those whose imperialist impulse toward geographic and resource-rapaciousness acquisition took them far afield in their quest to rule and colonize those countries less economically advanced than they, in a basically Europe-based (Christian and Islamic alike) compulsion of conquest serves now to alienate in a modern world that at least nominally accepts responsibility and seeks to placate through pluralist acceptance.

A refusal to be placated, an ongoing blame game and a backward-looking glorification of violent dissent and pride in emphasizing the once-dominated groups' cultural/social/heritage differences while degrading opportunity for advancement, results in a refusal to become integrated, to value education, to emphasize the positive features of their group assembly, embracing instead the destructive elements within them.

It is why blacks in America, indigenous populations universally and Palestinians in particular prefer crude violence against those they claim continue to degrade their human rights. It is why they are over-represented among prison populations resulting from their predation on their own groups as well as outside groups, it is why though they anguish over their past loss of dignity and equality, they do everything in their collective power to deny those achievable virtues to themselves since in doing so they reject values they consider not to be reflective of their own cultures.

Finally, it's April. And today has dawned quite beautifully with a full clear blue sky and the sun riding bright and warm in that ocean of blue. March didn't so much as exit like either a lamb or a lion, but in fairly ill humour, since the night-time low was minus12-degrees Celsius, a mite too cold for March transitioning to April.

Still, we're on an upward temperature trajectory, so there's little need to look April first too closely in the eye demanding an explanation. Snow and ice are both melting. Taking their time, it's true, but they're on the way out. And that will accelerate in tone the closer into April's centre we move as the weeks proceed.

Bilberry Creek ravine remains heavily snow packed, but it too is beginning to melt, the creek now freed of its ice cap, and clear runoff beginning to swell the as-yet modest rush of water downstream to find its way to the mighty Ottawa River. Where yesterday the trails were threateningly icy to traverse (not so for us, wearing cleats over our boots), today they're a trifle less so. And the top layer of snow has begun to take on that characteristic loose, pebbly appearance that we recall from other springs past.

Tree wells are beginning to form around the base of the trees, as the dark trunks take on the warmth of the sun and begin to melt the snow hugging the base of the trunks. And soon the snow that remains as a well will begin to turn yellow from tannin leaking from the bark. Little doubt now that the sap is running. Area maple lot owners will be most pleased.

The enchantment of spring has arrived, despite a robust, cold wind and temperature seemingly stuck at the freezing level. Due to taper upward, however, as the week progresses. Finally, we're seeing a few squirrels out and about though not many. Despite which the peanuts I'd scattered liberally in the usual cache places yesterday have disappeared.

Crows have begun to mob, and we've heard the doves that visit our porch and the feeders nearby begin cooing. A few squirrels, we've noted, have bare patches on their fur, and they've likely lined the nest they prepared for their young with it.

Not the least bit sad to see winter finally depart, knowing it'll be back all too soon. But awfully glad to note the arrival of April.