I was late this morning getting started on cleaning the house. Procrastination seems to have made a home in my busy schedule of housework. I somehow, mysteriously, find so many other things that simply must be done before I hang out with mops and dusters, much less a pail of soapy water for the floors. I now leave the vacuuming to my husband. He's more conscientious than I am and I keep telling him to relax about it. But it is a relief to me that he's taken on the vacuuming.

It should mean that I get through the housecleaning faster, but what it really means is that I can dawdle about taking 'breaks' more frequently, and those mostly consist of sneaking over to my desk-top to have a peek at what's going on. And once there, there's so much going on I feel as though I'm been ambushed; too much interesting stuff to break off quickly as I'd meant to do.

By the time two in the afternoon rolled around, Jackie was getting restless, a signal that I've been lagging. He asks to go out, I take him and Jillie out to the backyard, but clearly that's not really what he wants. Soon, I tell him, I'll get a move on now, and we'll be off to the ravine soon. Just the floors left to do. He's sympathetic and allows me to get on with the floors. Which is to say down on my hands and knees, scrubbing the floors.

They're tile floors my husband installed years and years ago, and they're a breeze to wash. In fact, though there's the laundry room, the powder room, our upstairs bathroom, the foyer, the kitchen and the breakfast room whose floors all get done on Monday, they take no time at all. More or less. And then I'm done, and off we go!

Not so fast. It began snowing a few hours earlier. Not a snowstorm, just a lazy sprinkling of fluff. So no real accumulation, just a thin layer flurrying down, but enough to cover the dark landscape and make it appear brighter. Bright enough, say, so my camera can squeeze out a few fuzzy photos. Because it's half-past three by the time we're in the ravine, and dusk has already asserted itself. Without that layer of snow it would appear much darker.

At one point we see a pinprick of light appearing, disappearing, appearing, then gone again and finally realize it's someone on a bicycle with brightly-lit lamps. A large dog passes us wearing a halter equipped with a night-light and he jauntily lopes on ahead with his human companion eventually catching up, but with the assurance that she can see him for quite a distance.

In fact, we're somewhat surprised, as the dark curtain of early night closes in, at the number of people out on the trails. We had expected to see no one else because of the fast-approaching dark, yet nothing could be further from reality. Everyone delighted to make footsteps in the new snow, and hoping for more to fall overnight. 

The temperature although quite a bit colder than yesterday around the same time, seems far more comfortable today, and we realize there's an absence of wind. Evidently it had exhausted itself roaring through the forest canopy yesterday, and decided to take a day of rest.

The wind lashed our faces as we walked up the street following Jackie and Jillie toward the ravine. A blustery, cold day, but we were dressed for it. A day dimly lit from the sky above encased once again in streaked grey clouds. Once we entered the ravine and clambered down into the forest, the wind shifted much higher as it rocked the spires of tree trunks high above in the forest canopy. 

Each morning when we awake, we hope to see a nice smooth layer of new snow fallen overnight covering the landscape. Obviously a trick of our subconscious knocking at the door of familiarity. At this time of year that's what should be happening, but hasn't been. Not yet, in any event, though it should be. So when we walk downstairs and look expectantly out the front door what taunts our eyes is the same old grim dark aspect of a desiccated garden, naked trees and a monochromatic dark grey landscape.

The winter equinox is a few weeks off yet, there's ample time for the weather to cooperate with our expectations. And this year, the stars align to produce what has been named a 'Christmas star'. A modern-day version of the bright star seen in the heavens some several millennia ago on the auspicious occasion of the birth of a Jewish child who would become a philosopher-king, an anointed messenger of the Almighty.

Here, if we're fortunate and the sky clears this evening we may see the Perseids, the Geminid meteor shower destined for our entertainment and awe at the sight of shooting stars. When our children were young and our oldest son was captured by astronomy he and I would sometimes go out into the backyard at night, lay out on deck chairs and watch for shooting stars. Occasionally we might see a satellite moving majestically across the sky. 

Anticipating that yesterday's all-day freezing rain event would have most surely melted whatever was left of the snow in the ravine, we made certain to pull cleats over our boots for traction on what we anticipated would be slippery trails. Our morning temperature was above freezing, allowing the precipitation that fell in the morning to sidestep snow and fall as rain, to our disgust. Surprisingly, the sun poked briefly around and through a few cracks in the armour of the steely clouds, but failed to assert a permanent presence.

 

While the wind moaned and groaned through the forest canopy, the temperature had dropped past freezing and the muck that resulted on the trails from all the rain of the previous day began to freeze and we soon realized that ample ice covered parts of the trail system, and were glad we'd worn cleats. Not so much on the ascents but on the descents, beyond useful.

 

We came across a few other people and dogs, mostly regulars, but for the most part the casual hikers who had been around and about in earlier months, trying to regain some equilibrium in a bid for normalcy in their lives -- valuing an opportunity for some fresh air and exercise, fed up with social distancing requirements -- have for the most part disappeared. 

 

One young man we've known for quite a while whose manner of speech always makes me think of a Tennessean but who isn't, and who likes to stand around chatting on those occasions when we meet, was out with his arthritic, sensible old black Labrador. Jackie and Jillie know this dog, so accept its close proximity, keeping their obnoxious behaviour to a minimum, just as the dog knows our two and following an initial greeting, more or less ignores them in preference to resting his painful old bones.

This.is.most.unusual. Call it climate change? Call it what you will, we appear to be stuck in a spate of unusual weather. There are no longer expected 'patterns' to anticipate. In the Ottawa Valley weather is never a constant, and always a matter of extremes; too hot and humid, too windy, too cold, too snowy. One day following another can be a complete contrast to the one before. Moderation is absent, excess is guaranteed.

The emphasis is on environmental change, but it is a process that has always been present, barely noticeable because it takes many generations beyond recall for the change to take place, much less noticed. Gross environmental change is cyclic in terms of 'ice-ages' and moderated times; and time for those to take place is seen in the geological record. Somehow, events appear to have accelerated, and there is one school of scientific environmental thought that clings to the fixated decision that human influence has served to degrade the environment. Traced to the Industrial Revolution the accelerated part, but humankind's influence on the environment began long, long before the 16th Century. 

Incrementally, bit by bit, so gradual that we never did 'notice'. Industrialization, agriculture, communication, travel, increased populations, urban infrastructure, all of it has diminished the natural in nature and we as beneficiaries of our natural surroundings have always extracted more from our environment than it could adjust to, to remain stable beyond entropy.

Now, and for the past half-century and more we have been in the midst of an evolutionary spiral of environmental degradation ... or at the very least a changeable and changing global atmosphere. Decades ago we stopped used hydrochlorofluorocarbons as cooling agents as a start. And then petrochemicals were targeted, a much more difficult proposition to transition away from. 'Acid-rain' warned us of the damage human activity was producing on the environment. And we heard about greenhouse gases as well a half-century ago.

There's also the considerable matter of how the planet has been polluted through waste materials improperly disposed of, and cluttering the oceans and the land masses of this globe. Careless disposal of carcinogenic chemicals, polluting potable water sources, our modern-age vision of 'disposables' in the reckless use, misuse and disposability of materials geared for single use, then considered garbage. And in the interests of mercantilism, the concept of built-in-obsolescence aided by advertising and public relations to enthuse the consuming public over ridding themselves of 'outdated' objects in favour of acquiring newer, more advanced ones.

All of which to link to the inordinately peculiar number of days this December thus far that have been temperature-mild, to the extent that rain has ensued rather than snow. The snow that has fallen simply washed away by a following storm's lack of ice content. From the sublime to the ridiculous; the macrocosm to the microcosm, I complain that we're once again locked out of a ravine-afternoon's hike through forest trails with our little dogs. 

Jackie and Jillie are nonplussed, making no discernible effort to link the rain they try to avoid going out into, with our lack of yet another hike. We've been ensconced in another day of freezing rain. Dim, dismal, gloomy, bad-tempered weather. Jackie and Jillie gambol about in the house, race after one another, tussle a bit, follow us around imploringly from time to time. They're happy whenever they anticipate meal times; that excites them to joyful run-abouts. They do the same once we've returned from a hike in the ravine.

Today they'll just have to be satisfied with their pre-meal celebrations. And go back to snooze-central. As for we other two, my husband always finds a sense of accomplishment in his workshop. And today I tended to little things in the kitchen and the bathroom and the bedroom. And we have our toys to entertain us; mine a Nikon digital camera that I like to play with, to try to better understand light and shade, ideal photographic conditions and the puzzle of fuzzy as opposed to clear outcomes. Along with the little photographic quirks of the camera, the add-on effects and their challenges.

There certainly has been a noticeable rise in food prices, particularly fresh fruit and vegetables. Correct that; not fruit, just vegetables. To be expected at this time of year. But lettuce at $5 s head? Seems a bit excessive, but I don't care for lettuce anyway; our salads wouldn't miss out without lettuce, though my husband likes it. So it was $10 for two cauliflowers, indispensable. Fruit, on the other hand, continues to be reasonably priced; soft fruit seems always to be on sale, blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, even if they're now deficient in taste. So much so that I'm bypassing them. In favour of hard fruit.

 And, of course, soft fruit can be had frozen at a much better price, but best used in baked desserts. I'd bought bananas, grapes, pears and apples and persimmons, and we've been enjoying the persimmons, my husband particularly likes them' we ate them daily for breakfast while living in Tokyo. And today I thought I'd bake a pear pie, so pear pie it was. With lots of complementary crystallized ginger in the filling, to give it a bit more oomph. For these pies I always use the pottery pie dish our  younger son made for me about twenty years ago. He's made other pie dishes but they're so elegant I hesitate to use them. This one has been well used.

Turned out to be yet another in a series of sombre-dark days. Heavily overcast, but no precipitation, though it continued to appear imminent. Yesterday, because the snow is well on its way to melting once again, awaiting a new infusion, we didn't bother putting cleats over our boots and regretted that decision once we were on the trails. Today we strapped cleats on for firm footing because the ascents and descents on the hills in the ravine have been slippery.

We weren't long into our circuit when we climbed up the second of a number of hills we meet on our way to completing the usual hour, hour-and-a-half circuit. And because Jackie and Jillie were straining at their leashes, focused on something behind us, we turned to watch as a young woman carefully took mincing steps, thinking about each foot placement before committing to it, carefully negotiating her way uphill.

We stopped and waited for her to crest the hill. Mostly because when we do climb those hills I usually stop to rest briefly before carrying on. It wasn't hard to notice she was pregnant, and we began a conversation with her. She was young, dark-haired, pretty and personable. We initiated that conversation to alert her to the fact that if she intended to continue hiking through the ravine trails she'd do best to acquire a set of cleats.

She knew that, she laughed ruefully, saying she wished she had a pair, and did we know where she could get them? Well, just about anywhere, but we recommended Mountain Equipment Co-op, and that she could just order them on line. Alternatively there are other sources, and we went on to emphasize how dangerous it could be slipping, sliding, falling, crashing in her condition. In our 'condition' of agedness as well, we laughed with her. She thanked us and continued on, promising she would acquire cleats.

 On our part, it seemed that she resembled quite a few young pregnant women we've seen lately, hiking on their own or with a companion animal, with whom we've stopped briefly to talk. Some were aware of the hazards inherent in traversing physically demanding terrain like the ravine, and took the necessary precautions, others were receptive to our advice, like this young woman. 

My mind switched to recall mode and I remembered just such a young woman we'd come across for the first time two years back. At the time she was jogging on the trails, and with her was a husky dog. We saw her on a number of occasions and realized she was in the early stages of pregnancy. We struck up a friendship with her and came across her occasionally, and then her due date came around and a month later we saw her pushing one of those overgrown-wheeled baby strollers meant for rough terrain and she introduced us to her baby girl Leonie.

After that we saw her again on a scant few occasions, once with her husband. There's a part of the ravine that isn't hilly, it's really part of the ravine forest, but not the ravine itself, and it's on that forested plateau that we tended to see her, perhaps a handful of times; once when the baby was a year old. A half-hour later, we saw the husky trotting ahead and behind the dog was our young mother and her little girl. While the young woman pushed the stroller along the trail, the toddler walked beside her mother, a stuffed toy-cum-blankie firmly grasped to her chest.An alert, precocious little girl that her mother told us has developed 'a mind of her own'.

 

The news, the news. Not very inspiring at the best of times and these are not the best of times. On the one hand we have the almost-imminent appearance of a vaccine that it is hoped will obliterate the presence of the horrible novel coronavirus that has afflicted the global community for almost a year.  The world economy has suffered, but above all, there is now one-and-a-half million dead whose family members will never come to terms with their loss.

But there appears to be another type of affliction that people suffer under, apart from the physical distress, apart from the disabling physical effects of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that so mysteriously entered the pantheon of deadly diseases preying on the animal kingdom, and that has relentlessly stalked the world in such a sinister manner. 

People have been doubly victimized, their organs succumbing to the dire destructive effects of the virus on the respiratory system and other vital organs, and aside from and together with that there is the psychological affect. People already suffering mental insecurity, and those newly introduced to the intensity of fear and loneliness are experiencing a greater loss of equilibrium; debilitating mental illness.

 A new poll just released by the Mental Health Commission of Canada and the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse has revealed that respondents who claim to be in "strong mental health" has realized a fall in numbers by 23 percent over the time the global pandemic was set loose on humanity. In 2019, 67 percent of Canadians felt themselves to be in a condition of strong mental health, and that number has now declined to 44 percent. Over half of Canadians now think of themselves as being in a perilous level of mental health.     

Suicide help lines have been beleaguered by a wholesale increase in calls of desperation, vastly outstretching their ability to effectively cope with a mental health crisis that has afflicted youth in particular with one in five seen to be acquiring or worsening a mental health disorder, according to the Canadian Institute for Health Information. Emergency department visits and hospitalizations for mental health disorders among young people rose in the last decade by 60 percent even as hospitalizations for other issues fell by 26 percent. And the numbers are rising, thanks to COVID.

In effect, this disaster that the public has been warned about for years has been realized at a time when no one appeared to take the warning seriously, that a global pandemic was due to appear, and would have to be dealt with. Governments ignored the warning, health authorities took heed but did little to prepare, since it takes financing to do so and public health is financed by the public through taxation, a dirty word when it is suggested that more taxes need to be forthcoming to handle an immense problem that might or might not appear in the near-to-distant future.

Well, it appeared in the near-enough future and that future is now, and we are living through the disaster that just about everyone found too difficult to assimilate into their unreceptive minds as being something that had to be prepared for. That lack of preparation has resulted in horrendous consequences. On the other hand, it's difficult to imagine  how matters could have turned out differently. There are simply so many issues of vital importance that have to be seen to and dealt with, even absent the appearance of a global pandemic.

So much for a thought process in an effort to see this problem in the round, neutrally and relatively unaffected as among the truly fortunate people so far spared a more intimate, gruelling and fearsome tussle with COVID and an overburdened health care system. The broad net effect of what has occurred in Canada is little different other than in scale of numbers than has happened elsewhere.

We go about our business. All of us do. Despite the physical constraints, the constant self-reminders, the cautionary steps we take -- the continual little voice whispering in the ear from the minuscule self sitting on our shoulders -- we get on with life as best we can. For us, it's a relatively simple affair. Tending to routine, minimally impacted in direct comparison to so many others.

Another dismally overcast day greeted us this morning, with the temperature set to rise above freezing to 2C. A damp day where even that level of cold creeps through protective layers of winter clothing to clutch at and penetrate our very essence beneath our parkas. But how wonderful to be out in the open, to stride along winter forest trails, to greet the occasional other hiker, to look up at the pewter-coloured sky, to see the bold, dark silhouettes of trees, to hear far-off woodpeckers call, to watch as tiny red squirrels hustle along the forest floor.

                      

At some point in the 'wee' morning hours last night I cracked my eyes open briefly and noted how bright it looked outside through the windows. And that's how I knew it was snowing, and felt confident that when we awoke in the morning we'd be greeted by newfallen snow. When snow falls during the night there's a telltale glow in the sky, and it transmits as a bright light emitted from the exterior to the interior, which in this instance is our night-time-dark bedroom.

And sure enough, not only had snow fallen, but more was coming down. Not great flakes, but tiny ones, in a thick shower that made us feel pretty good looking out over the fresh blanket that so wonderfully well covered the drab grey and black of the near-winter season awaiting snow. It isn't the first snowfall of this season but the previous two which were far more copious than this one is yet, melted thanks to a week of too-mild weather.

The Christmas decorations on our neighbours' lawns and homes will look far more 'in season', now with snow down. But those who have invested in those cartoonish large and colourful inflatable decorations of trains and Santas, sleds and reindeer, still made a poor choice. There are two of those inflatables on the street and once inflated they last intact all of a day before completely deflating, a pitiable sight of colourful plastic limply decorating a lawn, pooled flat out.

The best decoration is the simplest. And that's the natural decor of winter after a generous snowfall. One of our neighbours has decorated the front of his house and his spruce tree with all-white lights, and it looks understated and elegant, much more attractive than the houses with multi-coloured lights. Jackie and Jillie are completely non-committal on the subject; offering no opinion, reminding us that it isn't, after all, their holiday.

Although we're beyond familiar with the sight of a forest clothed in a new, thick frosting of snow, it's always exciting to see the landscape when it's fresh and gleaming with a purity all its own. It's always as though it's the first time our eyes have clamped upon the spectacle, for spectacle it is, of natural beauty beyond compare. It resembles a fantasy world.

 When Jackie and Jillie went out to the backyard first thing this morning, their first reaction was to run amok in the snow, delighted with its return. It's the kind of snow that clings, perfect for snowball-production and for erecting forts and snowmen. Igloos too, come to think of it. When our granddaughter was very young and we were her daytime caregivers we would take her out with us daily into the snowy winter landscape. She learned to plop backward into the snow and rotate her arms and legs to produce snow angels.

Jackie and Jillie haven't yet graduated to that level of sophistication.

 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.