Although we're very well aware that dusk is a warning and night falls with a thump in late afternoon (not SO LATE afternoon!) these wintry days, we were still taken by surprise when we left the house yesterday just after four and soon found ourselves in darkness in the ravine. Not that darkness is any kind of a hindrance to our hike through the forest trails. We know them intimately. Aside from the fact that we've got to be aware of our footing regardless of the amount of light available to us.

It's just the suddenness of the transition from twilight to utter darkness that's so surprising. Mind, if we still had snow down on the ground there'd be no problem with lack of light. My camera, needless to say, went on strike. There were no photographs to commemorate yet another appreciated and pleasurable hike in the forest for Jackie and Jillie. They didn't mind. Nor did they mind lollygagging about on the trails here and there stopping to inhale one odour after another, absence of light or not, making sense of it all, as we cannot.

They did mind this morning when we left the house without them, however. Jackie barking furiously at us, and Jillie keenly whining 'how could you do this to us again when we've been so good?'. Just as we can't understand what is so attractively irresistible to them sniffing about everywhere, they cannot understand that they won't be eating all the great food they so enjoy if we don't move ourselves to get out to the supermarket before the aisles are crowded with grocery shoppers.

They're ecstatic on our return, leaping all over us, nibbling at our hands, kissing our faces, tearing at our clothing to make certain it's really us, we've returned. And then they turn their attention to what's been brought into the house with our presence restored. Four large boxes full of goodies. Some meant for them, the rest for us, and some we'll share. An unequal proportion each way, but we're considerably larger and of a different species than they are. 

Treats? of course, treats! From cauliflower to chicken and 'bacon' strips. And then, of course, breakfast. Including their portions of hard-boiled egg, half an egg apiece. Routine and familiar and anticipated. And then it was relaxation all around. Time to read the newspapers, discuss the news of the day. And before we know it, it's time to leave the house again...!

A very cold morning, with an expected high of -6C, and a brittle wind. So though it's dry out the puppies need not only their fleecy winter coats but boots as well, and so do we. Cold enough to dissuade other would-be hikers from leaving their comfortably warm  homes. But the trails, as they have been for the last three days, are perfect, frozen solid, no more mush to trek through, and that's a relief. 

The sun is still riding high in the sky, a wide, pale blue sky with not a cloud in sight. And as the sun penetrates the forest canopy, its bright rays are stunningly blinding. Well, I forgot to take with sunglasses. But that's all right; for the most part in the forest we're shielded from the sun, and those brief moments when it's able to bypass the screen of the forest trees, its rays warm our backs. It's wonderful to feel so free and grateful for everything surrounding us. It's wonderful to be so pleasantly distracted from all that's happening in the world, to enable us to fully appreciate life in all its glory.

The legend has it that those with pure hearts sleep well. Our 'hearts', these days are filled with pure terror. No man is an island and we faithfully tune in to the news to be aware of everything that is happening the world over. Knowing what is happening is not reassuring at the best of times. Hearing the daily count of COVID-19 cases is beyond dismal, each day's count greater than that of the day preceding it. And a little voice within asks: how high can it go?!

There is a general feeling of unreality, that this cannot possibly be happening to the only world we have and know, our haven in an  unknown universe. Not that we are given a choice, either where we are within the universe or the course that nature takes with a little help from its creatures. Some of those creatures find themselves in an advantageous position as they exemplify nature's creation instructions embedded in their genetic codes, to survive.

And for some of those creations survival means extinction for other creatures. In this instance, though humankind has been responsible in part for the extinction of creatures living alongside humanity, it is a lifeless virus that expands its universe by shrinking ours. A temporary condition to be sure, but in the breach between the current state of affairs and that which will surely follow once a mass global inoculation takes place, this novel coronavirus is in the ascendancy and humanity fights for its survival.

Gloomy thoughts in reflection of reality that one does well to steer one's mind away from. In thoughts of more pleasant, carefree times. When we mentally castigate ourselves over our too-casual interactions with our neighbours, other creatures that share our landscape and the manner in which we take that landscape for granted, failing to adequately appreciate its well-being, since we are mere tenants.

As tenants, we went along with our two little companion-creatures for a late-afternoon hike in the forest today. We were out and about around half-past three, and at this time of year that represents late afternoon. When we set out the sky was a gentle, pale blue and the sun rode high above. We've finally hauled out our serious winter jackets now that we've turned suddenly into freezing temperatures. 

The icy atmosphere is good news in the sense that no rain falls at these  temperatures. And the woodland trails that have lately been thick with muck are now firmly frozen, feeling solid underfoot and much more comfortable to traverse. Jackie and Jillie are so excited being out in the woods they strain at the leash, they veer here and there, looping and threading their way off-trail attracted by irresistible smells that call out to be investigated and read by them.

Halfway through our circuit dusk moved into the forest interior, and looking up to the sky toward the west we could see drifts of cloud in the otherwise darkening-blue sky that had caught fire from the setting sun. The leafless trees appeared dark and gaunt against the brighter backdrop of the sky, and all was still, the wind shifted and departed. It grew progressively darker, incredibly swiftly. By the time we exited the ravine at street level the street was dark and household lights blazed along with outdoor Christmas lights.

Before we left the house I had put on a lentil-vegetable soup to simmer, aromatic with fennel and cumin seeds and garam masala, stuffed with chopped garlic, onion, celery, carrot and tomatoes.  As we entered the house, the warm, promising fragrance of the soup enveloped us. I suggested baking a cornbread to accompany the soup and my husband agreed, and I quickly went about mixing together butter, egg, shredded cheese, half-cup sour cream, a half-cup fine cornmeal, half-cup flour, baking powder and salt.

And from that concoction emerged a companion to the soup. To which I had added chopped spinach a few minutes before serving it for dinner.  But certainly not before preparing dinner for Jackie and Jillie, their kibble and additional chicken, following which they demanded their vegetable salad. Even though when we had returned home an hour or so earlier they'd had little bowls of chopped-up fresh cauliflower since to overlook their after-hike snack would be tantamount to puppy-neglect, quite simply unforgivable.

Another all-day rain yesterday kept us from our daily peregrination through the Bilberry Creek Ravine forest. So today Jackie and Jillie were eager to get out. When we woke this morning, though it was late it was so dark we weren't certain we hadn't mistaken the time for evening rather than an overcast daybreak. The gloom of perpetual dusk in the house interior has a dual effect on mood; discomfort and comfort, both. After all, we're perfectly comfortable ensconced in a warm house, preparing for breakfast at our leisure. On the other hand, hovering dusk in early morning hours dashes expectations for a day of outside adventure.

We needn't have been concerned; unlike the relentless rain of yesterday, rain withheld its presence and light snow flurries eventuated instead. The temperature hovered at 1C, and dampness prevailed, with a tolerable wind. Jackie and Jillie trotted after me as the kitchen was cleaned up, our beds made, and we continued reading for a while waiting for the darkness to lift.

So are we going already? could be plainly read in Jackie's expressive little face. He's our little man of action, always on the move, dizzyingly so. His sister on the other hand, doesn't get too stressed over things, taking events in her stride, and just content to be comfortable awaiting the big decision when to burst out of the house into the wilds of the forest trails.

Ah, the trails, those pathways leading in one direction and then another through the forest. Although the forest floor has absorbed a certain degree of frost, there's a surface layer that responds to the elements and since we've had so much rain this week, the leaf mass has deteriorated and integrated with the clay that comprises the bulk of the soil in this area, to produce a thick slush of muck. Reason enough to boot up little paws.

And no doubt part of the reason that we now once again have the trails to ourselves. The number of people from the community and beyond that had sought out the trails for months has declined to the point of completely vanishing. The wind and the cold, the slippery conditions underfoot and the monotone of grey/black in the foliage-deprived woods no longer call their siren song to those unaccustomed to nature's seasonal landscapes. And we have no complaint about it.

Today was a day devoted to noticing and admiring a range of fungi of various types appearing on old logs, on tree stumps and on live trees in the forest. There's lichen aplenty on the trunks and branches of some of the trees, in shades of green, grey and silver. But it's the presence of different types of fungi that is far more fascinating, their shapes and decorative value attesting to nature's aesthetic sense. And of course the bright green, lush mosses that make their home on trunks and logs, like living carpets.

On the forest heights above the ravine the forest floor resembles that of an early spring day, flush with little ponds of meltwater and rain. The snow we had revelled in just a week ago now completely gone, melted to form ponds augmented by the rain that followed. The frozen and already drenched forest floor has reached its absorption capacity.

The municipality is already figuring that they'll be in the black this year for snow removal costs, light on the budget for 2020/21. That's because even though it's quite early in December there have been no heavy snowfalls yet save for two fairly modest snowstorms leaving about ten cm of snow on each occasion. And the short- and long-range forecasts courtesy of Environment Canada appears to signal a milder-than-normal winter in the offing. By the time most normal winters end, the municipal budget for snow removal has gone deep in the red; not this year, it seems.

As though to emphasize those conditions, we're in another day of constant rain. It's zip-out quickly to the backyard, then flip-around and zip right back in for Jackie and Jillie. It seems to me the only reasons they aren't characteristically balking at going out is that one of us goes out with them, they're going out because their bladders are ready to burst, and they know when they come back in they'll get a good towelling rub-down, which they both love.

The only comfort in this kind of weather where we're lucky if the rain stops giving us the opportunity to break loose, or lightens up briefly to enable us to get out to the ravine for a muddy trek through the forest trails is the food we're now eating with meals geared toward comfort. We found that comfort in a fresh vegetable salad yesterday, and then the main course of a baked salmon side served alongside oven-fried potato chips. Oh, and a still-warm pear compote, fragrant with cloves.

I had to break the news to Jackie and Jillie that we won't be getting out this afternoon for our usual circuit through the forest. They weren't exactly glum, they demand their due of a little wrestling and belly rubs from us before settling back down again to snooze the afternoon away. They had followed me upstairs as they usually do, when I change from my 'work' clothes into day-wear, to sniff my clothing and trail expectantly after me.

I trailed them to try to get them to pose for a photograph, but they never turn out too well, unfortunately. The lighting in our bedroom isn't geared to producing good photographs for one thing, and they aren't given to posing, for another. Any time I think 'gotcha!', it's too late, they've moved on. But while I was there, in our bedroom my eyes are always captured by memory-holding objects, like paintings my husband did many years ago, one with our son up in Gatineau accompanying us on a hike, another of a fall pond landscape.

I even snapped a photo of me, as a memento of the way I look at 83, a few weeks before my 84th birthday. I do a lot of wincing, looking at myself in the mirror now. Best not to. But there are mirrors everywhere and we humans have a tendency to view ourselves, usually to see that everything is in order. Everything, increasingly, takes on a grim tone, in fact. It happens gradually, but you still find it difficult to remember how you once appeared, and are amazed to discover how you look now is an amazing resemblance to your mother. 

I had baked a gingerbread cake today for something different. My husband had recalled gingerbread cakes baked when our children were young, and just happened to mention that it might be nice to revisit that as an after-dinner treat. I asked him to save a cup of his morning coffee rather than spill out the leftover, and I used it in the cake batter, along with sour cream, an egg, and molasses, cinnamon, ginger and cloves. I hate to use baking soda, much preferring baking powder, but its levitation powers are superior with this kind of combination so baking soda it was.

And though my husband preferred not to have any frosting on the cake, I've got a sweet tooth and made a frosting with cream cheese, butter, icing sugar and vanilla. If it turns out to be too sweet for my husband's liking -- though I held back on the icing sugar -- it's easy enough to scrape off the top of the cake. Actually, it was a shame to cover the cake top, since it had such an attractive pattern. I had used an old cake pan with a fluted pattern that I've had for many, many years, just for that pattern. 

While I was busy in the kitchen, my husband was busy in his workshop, starting his new project consisting of two new stained glass windows to be inserted into a pair of shutters he made in preparation for the project. The preparation stage seems to take forever. It must be at least a month that's required just to produce the cartoon drawing he visualizes for the windows -- and that's after he's built and installed the shutters themselves to await inserting of the windows. It's a project that will likely take him through the winter.

It takes time to adjust -- or re-adjust as the case may be -- to living in deep cold again. This year of 2020 has been such an unusual, peculiar, horrifying year that everything seems off, just not as it should be. And that's from how just two people feel in a household that has been relatively speaking, untouched by the great tragedies of the global pandemic.

A kind of universal gloom seems to have settled everywhere. All is well nonetheless for those who are optimistic by nature, and for whose way of thinking leads them to believe that all difficulties given time will come to an end. We can be grateful for similar trust in the future, one that resolves itself  with the assurance that a reprieve will arrive to rescue the world from a universal threat.

While the thought of that threat hangs over everyone everywhere, it does so to differing degrees of constant awareness, and for those fortunate like us, the darkness is semi-remote, as though we are living through a time in history that will soon be history itself. But the subconscious presence of a suffocating concern over which we can do nothing but have patience does influence us in ways we may not recognize.

 The most we can do is follow that old adage of 'doing the best we can', coping. One way that humans do that is by comforting themselves and the most common type of symbolic comfort is through food and eating things pleasant to the palate that we call comfort food. Yesterday, another cold and windy day where the change toward winter penetrates both one's consciousness and the very marrow of our bones, we had a chicken fricassee for dinner.

Thank heavens for modern conveniences; freezers, refrigerators, stoves and ovens, central heating, reliable potable water to make cooking and hygiene that much more convenient. And a reliable food supply where produce untenable during winter months to procure locally can be shipped in from abroad. Garlic from Spain, mushrooms from Mexico, carrots from the U.S. were all part of the companion preparations for chicken from Ontario.The green beans from Mexico, the rice from California.

We woke to another dark day this morning, with no relief from the overcast conditions all day. Wind gusting to 60 kph, and threat of icy rain that failed to materialize. Today is laundry day which means a change of bed linen, only the 'linen', now is comprised of flannelette bedding for warmth and comfort under a down comforter. The cotton linens won't be used again until spring.

And we were grateful that the rain held off, though it's now scheduled for tomorrow. Temperatures just slightly below freezing and rain make for an uncomfortable combination, exacerbated by high winds, when contemplating adding quality to the day by planning an outdoor excursion. And where would we be without those outdoor excursions? Sheltering in place. An admitted need at this time, but self-confining to an uncomfortable degree for which there is a solution for we fortunate ones.

So gathering Jackie and Jillie, we all prepared for our outdoor excursion. With this intemperate weather we no longer have to cope with the presence of an unusual number of trail hikers from the wider community; an excess of cold and wind is a deterrent to them while it is not an inconvenience for us. We met up with a total of two people and two dogs. One we've long been familiar with, the other not.

 Otherwise we were in our own private landscape, a forest in transition between late fall and early winter, awaiting rescue from the dim appearance of a perpetual dusk, where towering forest trees reach to a metallic-grey sky, a high wind ripping through the forest canopy.

 

So, it's December, the month when my sister and I will be congratulating one another on reaching another age milestone. Both born toward the end of December, two days and four years apart. Five years ago our younger brother died. It just doesn't seem possible. His birthday was the 20th of January. Our mother and our other brother were both born in May. No one ever knew when my father was born, least of all himself. So that when he died he was somewhere around his early 50s. What a train of thought.

December is the month that completes another year. And in the religious calendar of the Western Hemisphere a month that commemorates a birth of a Jewish child whose legend became a world focus on the divine. A piquant reminder that though that legendary figure is the single most influential one in the world transcending time and the appearance of other singular personages, the people from whom that child arose continue to suffer unending expressions of contemptuous hatred from the wider community.

The sacrifice of a single, exemplary human being to the hope of transforming humanity into a far better brood than they are has never resulted in the revolution of the human character divinely articulated, for humanity in the aggregate is not agreeable to disciplining its darker emotions. The sacrifice of a people during one of history's bleak periods of collective psychopathy where six million were annihilated has never resulted in a lasting recognition of humankind's capacity to err.

We move from the macrocosm of world events to the microcosm of a global pandemic affecting a single family's life, the dire consequences of a virus moving steadily to strike down those innocent of rancid action toward others striking fear and introspection into the minds of others. Moving people to restrain their impulses for social contact, and to practise newborn habits once thought unthinkable.

In a pivot from the sacred to the ordinary, this household of two adults and two little dogs looks forward to colder winter temperatures, just cold enough to ensure that snow will descend in place of rain. Winter and rain in this geography don't mix very well, all the more so when a great natural setting of an urban forest is involved. The two days of steady rain we've just gone through has resulted in returning us once again to a landscape of dark, bleak late fall. A landscape that had been relieved by the refreshing aesthetic effect of two days of snow.

Although today is overcast and dark, it is also fixed at the freezing point, despite which the forest trails in the ravine remain thick with muck, slick and dark and supremely unattractive. There was precipitation that came down in the form of light flurries from time to time, welcomed as long as it wasn't rain. The creek at the bottom of the ravine is swollen with rainwater and melted snow. The forest floor is almost completely relieved of its initial snowpack.

But we found nothing to hinder us in our determination to get out into the ravine and the forest to celebrate another day of life lived to its fullest. Jackie and Jillie seem to seek out little plots of still-present snow preferentially as though they're puzzled by its swift disappearance and value what they can find that has remained. As we moved steadily through the trails, doing our best to evade the portions of trail steeped deep in mud, light flurries descended now and again.

Just as we were rounding the last bit of trail to make an abrupt turn right, descending the spine of the forest once again, we saw the bright flash of sun rays glancing off a pool of meltwater on the forest floor, fiery light amidst the gloom of the trees bereft of their green. For little more than a split second the sun had dodged the cloud cover, which quickly closed in again and shut out the light.

 

When I spoke with my brother-in-law today he told me Toronto had received several inches of snow overnight. Whereas we in Ottawa have seen our two snow-storms-worth of snow melt in the last few days, all ten inches of it. Ottawa is supposed to be much colder than Toronto, and usually is, with infinitely more snow in volume. Today's a reversal.

It poured heavily all day yesterday, but we managed to get out for our circuit through the ravine early in the morning before rain started. While we were out hiking along the trail system, we bemoaned the loss of that lovely early snowpack. Its melt and the warm ambience, just over the freezing mark, has left trails inches-deep in guck; slush melted snow well integrated with clay, a slippery, ugly mess.

Still, we were able to get out and at the same time avoid the rain. We'd hoped today would give us a window of opportunity to get out should the rain  briefly stop before carrying on. The pouring rain did give way to continuous lighter rain, but an opportunity to break out failed to materialize. After an all-too-brief flirtation with light rain it suddenly picked up again, with a vengeance.

Persuading Jackie and Jillie to get out into the backyard to do their business failed to receive a warm reception from them, though they grudgingly conceded they would, after all, get themselves dutifully out, before they burst. And while a maelstrom of wind and rain merged with the heavy overcast making a permanent presence for the day, Jackie looked mournfully out at the weather and made no comment.

While his sister, seated in comfort on the sofa, turned melancholy eyes on me as though to entreat for a swift outside burst through the ravine. Her, of all of us, leaving the impression that she's been short-changed by our obstinacy in not preparing our two little black bandits for a quick run through the trails ... the slippery, muck-gushing trails waiting to entrap the unwary with a long involuntary glide until the out-of-control glider is suddenly flat on his back, slathered with muck and nursing a sore rear end and elbows.

Still, there's comfort to be had. Hot, fragrant food to warm a disappointed trail trekker, and soothe the sore feelings of having been denied a run in the woods. We did that yesterday in preparing a Cornish game hen to roast in the oven in preparation for dinner, alongside a noodle-egg-raisiin pudding and helpings of Brussele sprouts. With sweet and piquant Clementines for dessert.

All of it shared with Jackie and Jillie as after-dinner treats. I sliced the sprouts into their little bowls, 'cooked' that for 2.3 minutes in the microwave, adding cucumber, bell pepper and tomato chunks and they were instantly mollified despite the wreckage of a pair of rainy days, courtesy of nature's elements. Tonight it will be French onion soup, fresh vegetable salad, and leftover apple pie. Our just desserts.

 When our children were young Brussels sprouts stirred a rebellion. They were dubbed 'outhouse sprouts' back then, 40 years ago. Now, they choose to place them by their own decisions on their dinner plates. The indoctrination of comestibles.