We've been so busy we hardly noticed the time clicking down to the end of April and tax returns. It hardly seems like April in any event since the last several weeks has been wet, cold, windy, more like late fall than early spring. And so, one of us is busy preparing the tax returns and it isn't me.

It's been two days since we removed the cone off Jackie, for the last and final time. All previous attempts had him licking furiously at his surgical wound area, and we didn't want to risk his opening of the wound again, necessitating another trip to the veterinarian hospital to have it restitched. As it is, during one of the times we thought it was safe to free him from the cone, he managed to pull out the last stitch done to ensure the wound healed completely. Now, he can lick to his heart's content without inflicting damage, and he does lick, with no damage ensuing.

Jillie, smart girl, has been cone-free for a week. She does get into plenty of mischief but she showed no interest whatever in inflicting misery on herself as Jackie did. Now that they're both freed of that impediment to freely impetuous movement, they've re-engaged in ripping around the house, wrestling, challenging one another to exciting physical feats of amazing dexterity and no little amount of incidental physicality bordering on insanity.

Once again they're sharing a nighttime crate since we no longer have to separate them for fear one will inflict incidental damage on the other's surgical area; both are completely healed. I sent an email expressing our gratitude to the Ogdensburg veterinarian hospital.

Yesterday, incidentally, though it was a raw day, we got out for our usual ravine walk after a hiatus of almost a week and a half avoiding it. Too difficult with Jackie wearing that cone, and too many days of heavy rain transforming the ravine into a veritable bog. The trail system remains a mess thanks to the tracked vehicles, the earth movers and shovels and bulldozers used for months in the bridges replacement work.

It was the first time Jack and Jill have ever been in the ravine with an absence of snow and ice. We did find some areas off the trails that continue to host large sheets of packed ice, but they'll soon melt, when/if/as the weather begins to warm up for prolonged periods, as it surely will.

It really is odd how little credit we give to a child's fears. Children, like other animals, seem somehow to have skills of detection that bypass adulthood. They can sense the existence of inexplicable symbols of what might be another world entirely, one that the adult eye is blinkered from acknowledging.

Is it possible that in another dimension altogether there are weirdly wonderful chimeras of nature's devising that she has placed in a parallel universe whose presence only the very young can detect? Strange versions of life stranded in that universe, lingering pensively and perhaps furious at their abandonment, making their homes in a universe that never sees the sun, where creatures bleakly exist without purpose, eyeing our own with the envy of the disadvantaged, might be hinted at by a child's cries of fear at what exists in the dark beyond the sight of adults, but visible to them.

Seventy-five years after I recall having had an experience that was truly inexplicable, one whose details I still recall, though blurred by time and distance, I still don't reject as implausible, and the hysteria of a very vivid imagination. I remember a trap door in a shed in a neighbour's yard and the invitation of a child who lived there to accompany her. I recall, carefully descending a series of steps carved into the earth, under the lifted trap door, and a burst of light and colour as my feet reached the level at which the steps stopped.

There, before me, was a bright landscape, an orphan landscape deep in the bowels of the earth and far from our life-giving sun, where green fields luxuriated under a bright light that elaborated detail and the vivid colours of proliferating flowers. I recall a small thatch-roofed cottage before which sat an old man, white-haired and frail, busily whittling away on a piece of wood.

I dimly recall returning to the world above, startled and confused by what I'd seen. And I remember trying to tell my parents what had happened to me, hesitant to for fear I would be blamed for doing something I shouldn't have, but wanting to share what I'd seen in the hope there might be an explanation offered.

And there was, only the explanation was in the realm of disbelief and a chiding that I couldn't offer any better reason why I had been missing for a length of time.

I've tried to puzzle out what has never left my mind and my memory, and I cannot. Are children gifted with extraordinary powers of perception ushered into their minds by a powerful urge to explore the world around us, and in the process daydreaming unlikely events into existence, even if only in their minds? Certainly most likely.

And hardly worth puzzling over, since it's a given, isn't it?

I went back temporarily to shopping alone, yesterday. Jackie has become a compulsive licker. Actually he always has been; enthusiastic about life in general, he leaps to lick our faces, his tongue keeping time with his irrepressible tail, its excitement about the happy state of affairs his life is, needing to be expressed. So, though we tried to remove that damn cone from around his neck on several occasions, since it was high time, because of his licking we had to put it back on. Awaiting the time when his wound was completely sealed so he couldn't do any damage to himself.

Until that collar was removed it wasn't really safe to leave them alone and unsupervised even in their playpen, we felt. So my husband remained with them rather than accompanying me to do the weekly food shopping at the supermarket we tend to favour, and I felt rather lonely without his company. In fact, when I'm doing the shopping I'm so busy looking around, selecting items to place in the shopping cart, that I'm hardly aware of anything else. Still, I hugely favour any time that we're together.

The shopping was three-quarters finished when I found myself at the dairy coolers. I heard a rough, querulous voice grumble "I can't find the lactose-reduced milk". I responded almost involuntarily, offering that it was right there, at the section I was perusing, since I'd just been looking to withdraw a two-litre container of 2% for my own shopping cart.

I looked up to identify where the voice came from, and there fairly close beside me was a tall, heavy-set, rough-looking man, a scowl marking his face in what appeared a permanent response to life's trials. "Get one for me, 1%", he ordered gruffly. I slide one, at his order, out of its slot and proffered it to him, and his response was to order me to place it in his cart, in a very particular part, and I did so, mentally shrugging off his offensive rudeness.

Then he turned again back to the large glass doors fronting the refrigeration unit, opened one of the doors and began flailing at a row of one-litre chocolate milk containers, failing to secure one and loudly declared their defiance of his attempts. I sighed, and said, just a minute, I'll get one for  you. He glared at me, and imperiously called over one of the overworked young lads trying to fill up the gaps in the emptying unit, from the warehouse side of the store.

Quite the trial to live with someone like that, I thought to myself; an ugly, demanding attitude would dampen anyone's enthusiasm for life. Then I corrected myself; the man likely lives by himself, fends somehow for himself, resents that fact of his life, and partially because he looks after himself isn't in the best of health, let alone the best of moods.

Yesterday was kind of a lost day. It's discombobulating for me to see a doctor, and so I rarely do, since I rarely have reason to. But yesterday was also the appointment for my annual check-up (check-in?) with the cardiologist who has been looking after me, so to speak, since my emergency and totally unexpected five-day stay at the Ottawa Heart Institute four years ago where it was discovered that my haemoglobin level was perilously low, enough to require two blood transfusions, caused by a bleeding ulcer on my stomach wall. Caused, you guessed it, by long-term use of a 81mg Aspirin daily dose.

I have a leaky heart valve that concerns the good doctor. I believe I've had it since day one of my introduction to life. So yesterday I was treated to the joy of an echogram and after that an EKG (electrocardiogram), that the cardiologist could study to determine whether there was any change in that leaky valve's condition, which there wasn't.

At my earlier, prolonged hospital stay to monitor my heart, I had undergone an angioplasty in an effort for the cardiologist to completely understand what had happened to cause fainting spells and physical weakness that were the symptoms I experienced as a result of that bleeding stomach ulcer. The cardiologist who had performed the angioplasty informed me that there was plaque in my main heart artery, but not of an unusual amount for someone of my age. That too was an inheritance from my father who had arteriosclerosis.

Which is why, along with my elevated blood pressure condition and high cholesterol, that my cardiologist wants me to continue taking aspirin daily, with pantoprazole to line my stomach wall tissue against the acidic effect of the Aspirin, both of which I had on my own initiative stopped taking a year ago when a blood test revealed very low levels of B12 vitamin as a result of long-term use of pantoprazole. There are always side-effects of a deleterious nature, some serious, some not, in taking any kind of drugs. It's termed the iatrogenic effect; one drug often causing a condition requiring another drug to treat, which also causes a 'condition'.

It isn't a pleasant place to be, and most people do their best to avoid having to visit a hospital. There is a constant stream of people entering and exiting. And for the most part they are elderly and frail, coming in singly and in couples, in wheelchairs, or ambulating with the assistance of walkers, or in the company of those who render them physical aid. This is life, and these are people who are suffering from the ultimate chronic condition; old age creeping upon us, gifting us with failing organs to complicate whatever is left of our treasured lives.

Her voice sounds quite, quite different. Almost light-hearted. Happy. Satisfied that the dreaded exams are now finished, done with. Her first year at university under her belt. All that studying, nose-to-the-grindstone -- and it was, though she took time out to draw herself away from the tension by regular visits to Hart House -- over until fall of 2015 returns her to Toronto once again.

She now knows her away around part of downtown Toronto, the part she feels at home in. From her university residence on Chestnut Street to the campus grounds, and beyond, where she decided proximity required no more than dedicated walking, rather than reliance on public transit, weather be damned.

She won't be returning to the residence come fall, however. She and two other students, her friends, have decided they'll rent together and see how that works out. One of them was her roommate this year, who has already returned to Moscow. Though she admits she'd prefer having her own little space all to herself alone. That too may come eventually. Correction: it most certainly will be in her future for a period of time, at least.

Of the courses she took it seems that history was of the greatest interest to her, though psychology wasn't far behind. She thought the history professor led the students through areas that would be of future value to them all. She'll eventually be studying law, since it's criminal law that she is particularly invested in.

I've always told her any new information she gleans from any sources represents a valuable addition to her pool of knowledge, however irrelevant it may seem. She never did agree, even when she was younger, but I stand by my contention.

Any time I read anything interesting about human nature, the law and new findings, I tend to relate them to her. I know that domestic violence is an issue that interests her, and mentioned a new U.S. study that finds it is on the decrease, and when I told her that, she snorted derisively.

She'll make a fine lawyer.

Our younger son spent the weekend camping close to a research station on Vancouver Island, near an estuary leading out to the ocean. He was reconnoitering nearby, at a creek as a possible venue for the oncoming summer season when he will be supervising post-docs as he usually does. He was wearing hip-waders when he happened at one juncture, to be waddle-walking along an isolated old logging road.

At a bend in the road he thought he saw the disappearing back-end of a young bear. When he turned the bend himself, at an obviously slower rate than the swifter animal's progress, the road straightened out and he could see ahead the unmistakable form of a big cat, its long tail swinging, white-tipped, the animal a deep brown colour, proceeding with the grace of a cougar, the first he's ever seen in the wild.

When it became aware of his presence, it turned to regard him, then languidly turned back to its business-like progress along the road, and soon disappeared from view. It would have been aware of our son's presence since, thinking it was a bear, he had shouted loudly at it, to make certain it knew that someone was nearby.

We were ourselves thrilled when, in broad afternoon daylight, two juvenile raccoons had appeared, one in our backyard at the composters and the second at the front of the house, sifting through what was left of the discarded seed and nut piles we replenish regularly for our neighbouring wildlife. But a cougar? I'd be somewhat less thrilled than immediately stricken into panic mode.

It was like that for me, paddling a canoe in a semi-wilderness Algonquin Park area with our son and his father, when we came up close and too personal to a moose cow. I insisted we back-paddle immediately while they were all for a closer look. As far as I'd been concerned we were far, far too close to the enormous animal.

We're late this year, much later than previous years in beginning our household spring cleaning chores. But we have finally made a start and it makes us feel good that we've at least begun the process. For one thing, feeding local wildlife throughout the winter months leaves a dreadful amount of unsightly detritus behind, to be swept away and hauled off. But before my husband managed to get to it, along came a pair of visitors. We were surprised that in broad daylight a young raccoon was making his way along the back fence toward the composters. Which has inspired my husband to begin taking out the kitchen compost far more frequently this week; his sympathy expressed for the hunger of newly-awakened hibernating creatures.

The very same day, again in the middle of the afternoon, another larger raccoon ensconced itself comfortably in the midst of the pile of seeds and nuts left after winter's bounty was expended by hungry wildlife. The raccoon remained there awhile, digging among the detritus to daintily pick out treats until he was satisfied, and then ambled off. Not long afterward the entire mess was shovelled up and into compost bags for trash collection.

As for the house interior, I began taking down sheers and started with those in the dining room, to wash them and return them later to the windows, fresh and clean. They had been fairly clean, but not fresh, and so that's changed. And I began to tackle the kitchen cupboards, beginning with the pantry wall, hauling out boxes, jars and tins, to check expiration dates and clean the shelves. Jack and Jill were curious, but non-intrusive, for which I was grateful.

And since it was also a gloriously sunny day and not all that cold, I also hied myself and them off to the backyard to begin to finish the process of clean-up that had mostly been accomplished last fall; cutting back any perennials I'd overlooked, including roses, picking up detritus that had fallen throughout the winter, and generally satisfying myself that things were in order to welcome spring bulbs pushing through the soil in preparation for their early blooms.

My husband had gone out shopping, in the meanwhile, for wire fencing to be temporarily erected around the gardens to keep our two little gnawing-imps out because they tend to want to nibble at everything and we've got lilies coming up, and they, among a few other plants, are poisonous for canines. In all, we felt well satisfied with this initial clean-up foray, and plan to continue until we feel enough has been done this spring.