This morning, a cardinal's springtime trill urged us to greet another day with the optimism that we're accustomed to. Later, a pair of robins busied themselves in the rock garden, looking for worms and insects, neither of which are in great supply as yet. The areas that had so recently shed themselves of the winter's layered snowpack with the introduction of spring, have reverted to a wintry landscape.

Flocks of redpolls once again roosted in the magnolia branches awaiting their turn at the feeding station below.  The lawns that had been entirely free of snow are once again white and puffy as though a giant hand had sprinkled marshmallow all over the landscape.

On Wednesday, a snowstorm blew into Ottawa and it was fairly ferocious with white-outs and emphatic white gales of wind. It began in the early afternoon and continued on into the night-time hours leaving behind in excess of 20 cm of new snow. The following day there was rain instead, as the temperature moderated. So rain fell on the snow, quite heavy at times, sufficiently so that it made no sense to attempt to get out into it for a pleasant walk.

Today it's overcast again, and cold enough given that last night's temperature dipped to minus-ten-degrees, with considerable wind. And then came the snow again. When the snow had slightly abated we set out with our two puppies Jack and Jill for a ravine walk. They were delighted. Snow had returned to the landscape with a vengeance. Not that the ravined forest had surrendered all the snow packed over the length of the winter months on the forest floor by any means. But there were large emerging patches of brown and green, shed of snow.

Thursday's rain didn't manage to expunge all the snow that fell the day before. And we walked in a bit of a snow squall, the snow steady but at times turning lighter. The sun even made a tentative entrance a few times before once again being snuffed out by the clouds intent on dropping more snow. Progress underfoot was a bit awkward in places where others hadn't trodden down the snow, now quite wet. A rudimentary trail had been blazed on the pathways but it was an awkward and narrow one, with deeply uneven indentations.

Which didn't slow down Jack and Jill one bit. They were both feeling ferociously frolicsome, and aside from speeding along the paths in tandem, its unevenness no impediment to their tiny paws and long legs, they chased one another relentlessly in spirited spurts of challenging play.

We set our wake-up time for five, but we were awake without the the clock reminding us of the time. Which is usually the way when something extraordinary, out of routine's comfort to face any worrying event that might confront us the following day. Fact is, I was unable to sleep at all. My mind a turmoil of emotions and fears. That too is typical of me.

We had arranged the night before for the taxi to arrive at six, and it was there on time. Between five and six we got our two little dogs Jack and Jill outside briefly, then fed them their breakfast. As far as they were concerned there was nothing out of the ordinary in the business of the start of the day up to then. They were as eager to eat as they always are. Knowing what they did not, that they would be left alone in the house for hours, they were taken out again just before we left the house.

We had showered, I'd made up our bed, and we had arranged to take with us what we needed for the day. Prescribed medications, reading material, instructions we were advised to return with us to the day unit. We prepared to be away for most of the day. Which equated with lots of reading material. In the end, not much of it was read. By either of us. Tension doesn't exactly make for the relaxing action of reading, though reading does relax tension.

It had taken a scant 20 minutes to drive from our house to the Ottawa Hospital Heart Institute. Under overcast skies, the roads were dry and not at all crowded with morning rush-hour traffic. Perhaps partly explained by the fact that a weather-alert had been posted for heavy snowfall to begin in the early afternoon. From the hospital unit I could look out at the exterior of the hospital where heavy construction was proceeding, but at noon there was still no snow.

By the time we finally left the hospital however, around three in the afternoon, the sky was completely obliterated in a heavy snowstorm. The taxi arrived scant minutes after we'd called for it. From there we drove in a white blizzard, traffic slow and halting because the adverse conditions certainly called for driving caution. Even so, the return trip took no longer than the reverse in the early morning.

Jackie and Jillie were excited, meeting us right at the door, but at the same time strangely subdued, for them. They had been good little tykes in our absence, surprising for the mischief-prone and energy-propelled characteristics that define those little imps. We gave them treats; some kefir and a few doggy biscuits, and then we all settled down to rest together, exhausted.

Throughout the winter months I always wear full-length skirts while in the house. Little Riley used to enjoy hitching a ride on the back of my skirts when I was heading downstairs. There are echoes of Riley's habit in Jack and Jill, one of them, I can never be certain which, does the same thing. Jackie, in fact, often tugs at my skirts and tussles with them when I first put one on after we've been out and intend to remain indoors afterward. He seems to find it a challenge to clamp a part of the skirt in his mouth and pull it toward him, tugging ferociously. He's never yet caused damage to any of them, but his behaviour is somewhat peculiar.

Like his fascination for bare feet. He seems to have a fetish for feet bare of any covering. I often go about the house in bare feet. When I'm doing my daily exercises, as an example, I wear a bare minimum and that means my feet too are bare. As long as I'm lying on my back (however briefly) he takes the opportunity to thoroughly lick between the toes and the sole usually of my right foot, for some reason preferable to the left, though today both feet were given a thorough licking, the left when he was finished with the right. Usually when I'm finished my exercises, I just sit on the floor for awhile, and that's the signal for Jackie to go after my feet and Jillie to snuggle close to have her belly rubbed. Jackie enjoys belly rubs too, but not before his preferred pleasure of toe-licking.

Jillie too has her aberrant behaviour difficult to comprehend. For example, though Jackie soars heights as though he's in flight, effortlessly and gracefully, Jillie seems confounded by his ability. He will leap onto the sofa when they're engaged in a good vigorous fighting session, and tease her from there.  She becomes visibly frustrated but doesn't believe she can follow up by a simple leap. She's more than capable of any kinds of leaps since we've seen her engaged in acrobatic jumps elsewhere, outside in the backyard, in the ravine. But in the house? Something seems to trigger her brain to believe she is unable to jump.

Usually when I'm sitting on the sofa reading, she wants to get up beside me to snuggle and sleep. I encourage her by telling her "up!" and that's the signal she uses to place her two front paws on the sofa's edge, waiting for me to bend down and lift her up bodily. We've graduated from the lift to a firm hand placed on her bottom and she would then climb up. Since then we've proceeded to pure show on my part. I simply notionally placed my hand lightly on her bottom and with that touch, she leaps effortlessly on her own. And now? Now, I have only to lightly wave my arm and hand in a downward motion and up she goes, no touch at all. But without that little pantomime she will sit there, convinced she needs help mounting a height.

On our first (and only) trip to Newfoundland years ago, we arrived a day before the convention we were to attend began. At the airport the first thing we did on arrival was rent a car for the duration of our stay. And once we had checked into the hotel where we had reservations and where the conference was to take place, we set out to do a little bit of exploration. Not of St. John's, that would come later, on foot, but of the island itself.

We drove along the coast on this rocky outcrop in Canada's east where the vast Atlantic sits resplendent and the rock that is Newfoundland showed us ample evidence of what existence alongside the ocean where storms frequently blow in and the terrain has long since been swept of any arable soil that might have accumulated without the influence of the constant winds was like for vulnerable botanical specimens. The size of the occasional gnarled, dwarf trees clinging tenaciously to the rock, growing in whatever sparse soil was available, constantly buffeted by salt spray and high winds told all.

We drove, and we drove, slowly and determined to see and assess what life in this hostile but forbiddingly beautiful environment was like for its stalwart people. We came across one tidy and colourful outport fishing town after another, marvelling at the sense of wry humour displayed in neat picket fences hammered into the granite surrounding each house. None of the householders would have need of a lawnmower to do the usual gardening chores that such fences implied. They were picture-perfect vestiges of human determination to make do with whatever survival mechanisms are available in various types of environments.

The villages were quiet and serene in appearance, some with small fish-processing facilities apparent, others just silent, and with a haunting look of sad and reluctant abandonment, though fresh laundry was seen, white and flapping ceaselessly, as though a message of surrender to the environment representing a version of the provincial flag.

Because the hotel was close by we had no need to drive to Signal Hill, and climbed it early one morning, me wearing a pair of red leather dress shoes with a tiny stump of a heel, certain to have been ruined in the process. Who might have thought to bring along boots to a conference? I should have known enough to reckon with my husband's never-ending sense of curiosity. From the top of the promontory looking out over the wild, deep and wide Atlantic, we looked with wonder at waves crest and smash against the shore, and far out on its vast stretches we watched dimly-perceived shapes we were certain to be whales.

When it came time to leave, one of St. John's famous fogs muffled the landscape, and our flight was repeatedly delayed. People waited at the airport in droves, milling about restlessly, many with hand-luggage representing lobster-packed boxes to take back home. We had stuffed ourselves with an endless offering of lobster at the end-of-conference dinner that had featured a stand-up comedian who treated us to the best of the island's wry, cynical humour. The audience responded with gales of laughter at his famed patois of Newfiespeak and the vast cultural divide he emphasized existing between Newfoundlanders and those from "away".

One wonders now what the perpetually quipping Newfoundlanders make of the news out of St. John's of a 20-year-old woman driving her car over Signal Hill, abandoning it just as it plunged over the cliff high over the Atlantic. Not everyone's idea of a nice restful Sunday. Breaking free of the car's plummet, the woman landed 45 metres down the cliff face, to be rescued 20 minutes later by emergency crews and taken to hospital with serious injuries.

One woman has been taken to hospital after a dramatic single-vehicle crash on Signal Hill, Sunday, Apr.3, 2016. . . THE CANADIAN PRESS/St.John's Evening Telegram-Keith Gosse

April is it? You'd hardly know it by the prevailing temperatures, the wind, the sun when it's out, barely making a difference. We thought April's introduction would emphatically demonstrate spring's resolve to arrive, but early days have proven otherwise. And today's whipping wind and icy-cold atmosphere, even with a bright sun that is strengthening in warmth by the day, is even worse than yesterday's.

On the positive side of the natural ledger, it seems that word is getting around that there is food to be had around our house. Even greater numbers of the spring-arriving redpolls have been coming to our feeders. Those tiny birds cling to everything, swooping in a looping arc down to the seeds. When squirrels are also around, the redpolls momentarily make themselves scarce heading in a wild dash to the overhanging trees, but they return once the initial caution has passed. Surprisingly, the mounds of layered snow have now disappeared from the lawns.

And yesterday the Rakhra family brought food over to us, how's that for a change? I'd said to Mohindar that I'd like to get the recipe from him for the lentil soup I often smell cooking in the atmosphere, and he laughed a few weeks back when we were meandering up the street on the way to the ravine. He relayed my message to Rajinder who said she'd send over a sample of the soup next time she prepared it, and then if we liked it, would provide us with the recipe. And yesterday Imerin came over with a container-full of the soup his mother had made. Along with the soup was a portion of the roti bread she had also made. That's what we'll have for dinner tonight.

The day before, I'd baked a lemon-crunch pie for dessert, and also a small batch of croissants. The croissant dough was made with milk, eggs and butter, so it's a bit richer than the normal fare we have in bread products. I used to bake croissant every Friday night when our daughter and her husband who at that time lived close by, came over regularly to share Friday-night dinners with us.

So, there'll be a little suspense in the anticipation of what walking conditions will be like in the ravine this afternoon. The high temperature for today is minus-three degrees, so the ice capping the trails will present as a real challenge, even with our cleats, on the ascents and descents that are so frequent in the ravined forest. Even Jackie and Jillie tend to slide uncontrollably if they make a poor decision rather than seeking out the more likely prospects where the ice has been denaturized since the advent of milder weather. We won't have that option today.

We hardly thought we'd be able to get out into the ravine for a walk today, given the heavily overcast skies and the pelting rain. But the rain stopped and out we went, grateful for the opportunity. Yesterday there was no one but ourselves in the ravine, and today again we were the only ones out. The reason is clear enough; without investing in the assurance and safety of a pair of cleats to pull over boots, it's foolhardy to venture out where the trails are sheer ice now.

Rain is melting the snowpack and doing the same with the ice, but there's layers of it and although there are now some clear areas in the forest, for the most part it's still well covered in snow. The creek, though, is running full with spring melt and the added rain. The creek itself is never an attractive sight save for winter when it cradles ample snow to give cover to its stark unattractiveness unlike most forested creeks say in southern Ontario. This one has a clay base and sparse productivity for fish or other aquatic creatures.

Today, we heard the madcap call of a Pileated woodpecker, the sweet trills of cardinals and the perky little sound of nuthatches in the woods. At the front of our house where the bird feeders are, flocks of redpolls continue to gather in delightful numbers during the spring reversal of their migratory routes from southern climes back up to the Arctic.

Spring is most definitely on its way, beyond what the calendar year tells us, it's just got to become accustomed to asserting itself over winter's reluctance to leave. We're cheering it on.

A treasured gift appeared in my email inbox this morning. An invitation to share in the latest photos taken by our youngest son, through Dropbox. He had taken three days, in fact, the last three days of March, to go off to Pacific Rim Park, to camp at Kennedy Lake and do some kayaking.

He took with him the kayak that he constructed himself over a lengthy period of time. It was completed over a year ago, a buoyant cradle of surpassing grace.



He had already done some canoeing off Wreck Beach in Vancouver, though the water is still cold. But in Vancouver spring is quite a lot earlier than it is in our part of Canada, and the fruit trees are already in flower, while it will take well over a month before ours are moved to do the same, closer to two months.



Constant heavy rain kept us from our usual daily ravine walk yesterday. And though the sky remains heavily overcast, with plenty of ragged grey clouds and the chance of showers still remain, the rain has departed.



At Kennedy Lake, our son encountered tranquility and beauty. And just incidentally, perfect weather; clear skies and warmth soaring to 20 degrees. For him it's both a charge and a peaceful time of reflection. Every morning Tai Chi, and in the evening, a roaring fire. Sandwiched in between restful paddles on the azure, calm lake.