My husband swears he heard a robin early this morning. I did not hear anything. I was fast asleep. And kept sleeping. It's those late-night-early-morning hours I keep. Something has to be done about that. And that something, I believe, will be the eventual full unfolding of spring.

I can hardly wait for the snow and ice to succumb to warmer temperatures and the newly energized sun, to lay bare the garden. When that happens, I know, from past experience, that it will take no time at all for the perennials to begin to emerge, the fall-planted bulbs to crack their way through the surface of the soil. And then it will all begin to coalesce into a kalaidescope of colour, shape and promise toward summer.

I did see a cardinal blazing crimson atop the bare branches of a tree this morning, though. My husband pointed it out to me, and its sweet trill made our morning. Our little dog, so sensitive to the growing warmth of the sun has begun insisting on a day like this, that it is his prerogative to gain the outside, and lie contentedly on the deck, absorbing the soul-balming rays of the sun.

Canadian icon Stompin' Tom Connors brings the house down performing Hockey Night on Late Night with Conan O'Brien in Toronto on Feb.12, 2004.   (The Canadian Press)

 

Canada has lost a homespun legend, a Canadian singing original whose love of his country and connection to the land and its people he wrote about in songs that captured the public's attention in a long career as a singer-songwriter. His patriotism ran so deep that he scorned other Canadian musical performers whose careers took them away from Canada. Not so with Stompin' Tom Connors.

He will be missed. Like the incomparable Gordon Lightfoot, Stompin' Tom sang passionately about the country whose grandeur never failed to move and amaze him. He sang of small-town Canada, about its people, unspectacular in the larger scheme of things, but spectacularly Canada.

His penchant for stamping his foot in time to the music he produced marked him as different, and his stomp became part of his act and part of his appeal, as a punctuating musical instrument accompaniment of his very particular devising. It demonstrated how deeply his own music and the thoughts that compelled him to write of ordinary, everyday things Canadian moved him.



Born in 1936 in Saint John, New Brunswick to an unmarried teen, his early life was a misery. At age four he was sent by his mother to beg in the streets. He lived with his mother for a short time in a low security penitentiary before the Children's Aid Society took him in, and he was then given to the care of foster parents.

He ran away at a young age and set out to make a place for himself in the world at a time when most young people live securely in an emotionally supportive home environment. His sad early life was not the worst of what children experience born into dysfunctional situations without parental guidance, care and support, but it stands right up there with the worst violations of a child's right to emotional security and stability.

He matured earlier than most children would ever dream of needing to, because he had to, to support himself. He acquired his first guitar at age 14 and began a hardscrabble life of small-town performances in hotels operated by those who recognized his talent.

He left a letter to those whom he credited with supporting him all his performing life; the ordinary people who enjoyed his folksy demeanor, his plain, simple and moving songs, his inimitable delivery and his determination to be who he was meant to be. So many others within society deprived of the kind of nurturing every child needs to survive into well-balanced adulthood have ended up as social deviants, detesting the world that they inhabit.

This was not Stompin' Tom Connors. He leaves behind a wife, children and grandchildren. And he also left behind a public legend of himself as one of the people, but an extraordinary Canadian withal. The other thing he left behind was that letter to the public who thought so highly of him:

Stompin' Tom's final message to his fans 

Hello friends, I want all my fans, past, present, or future, to know that without you, there would have not been any Stompin' Tom.

It was a long hard bumpy road, but this great country kept me inspired with its beauty, character, and spirit, driving me to keep marching on and devoted to sing about its people and places that make Canada the greatest country in the world.

I must now pass the torch, to all of you, to help keep the Maple Leaf flying high, and be the Patriot Canada needs now and in the future.

I humbly thank you all, one last time, for allowing me in your homes, I hope I continue to bring a little bit of cheer into your lives from the work I have done.

Sincerely,

Your Friend always,
Stompin' Tom Connors

Farewell, grand soul.

We've become night owls of late. Staying up late into the night to busy ourselves with relaxing occupations, and trekking upstairs to bed into the morning hours. Last night my husband remembered, after a busy day, that he had meant to put on a bread for himself for breakfast consumption. He had been viewing one of those British mysteries he favours on his little laptop, when it occurred to him, at ten in the evening to dispatch himself into the kitchen and start the bread machine on a crusty white loaf.

He doesn't like to leave the bread in the machine after the baking has concluded, preferring to take it out right after the process has been completed, allowing the bread to cool on the counter so that its crust will develop crisply and not become moist, left in the machine overnight. So we were even later than usual going up to bed.

I started upstairs around half-past midnight to wash up for the night. On my way to the staircase glancing outside through the full-length glass window in our front door. I often do this, to catch a last look at the out-of-doors, our porch, the winter-frozen trees lapped with freshfallen snow, on my way upstairs. This time I caught a fleeting glance of something moving, and I looked again. Thought I saw a cat, a dark grey cat, making its way up the front walk, somewhat to the side, so it wasn't clearly visible. It continued until it reached the step leading to the porch and effortlessly leaped onto the porch. What I had taken at first to be a cat - no, a dog - no, a cat - turned out to be a raccoon.

I called my husband over from the family room to the foyer so he too could take pleasure in a close-up view of the raccoon. A juvenile raccoon, we judged, from its size and colouration, and busy scoping out the front of our house. It soon became aware that we were watching it, and made its leisurely way over to stand directly in front of the door, peering within, raising himself gracefully on his hind legs, front paws lifted before itself, to look more closely at us, and try to sniff out our presence.

We felt singularly privileged by the encounter. I even felt the impulse to open the door, speak softly to the creature, offer something to eat, but knew better. Soon he ambled off, going down the walk the same way he had gone up it to reach the porch. We knew he would most likely make his way to the backyard, to open the compost bin we're currently using. And sure enough, when my husband later took our little dog out for his end-of-night evacuation before bedtime, the lid of the composter was off, so my husband placed it back.

And, when he repeated the procedure of taking our little dog out first thing in the morning, the lid was off again. A good night for raccoons.

We see them fairly often in the ravine, Charlie and her human companion. Charlie is an ebullient, good-natured dog, very large and sloppy, black-and-white, her ancestry a real question in canine genetic inheritance. Perhaps some German Shepherd, some Collie, some heaven-knows-what; large-dog breed admixture of some kind. She is beyond genial, when she sees us at a distance she makes short work of that distance, advancing speedily for the purpose of greeting us and soliciting an emotional response through tactile dog-to-human contact.

Her human companion dotes on her, but doesn't hesitate to reprimand her if she momentarily forgets - as she often does - and launches herself at me - which in the winter conditions prevailing now in the ravine can mean an unexpected slide down a slope I've been ascending - or descending, as the case may be. 

He himself is always delighted to come across other walkers in the ravine, though he speaks disparagingly of those who carelessly leave behind coffee cups, empty cigarette packets, soft-drink cans. He speaks often of the ravine being the 'best kept secret' of the area, but, alas, obviously not secret enough. This man will speak without a breath to allow the indulgence of another person's observations on any subject he launches. If anyone does get that proverbial edgewise word in, he will simply continue on his verbal trajectory, completely obliterating the other's unwanted opinion.

Strangely enough, he is one of those computer types who excel in manipulating an Internet presence; a webmaster working for a government agency. The kind of person who conventionally seems silent, morose, withdrawn. He exhibits a completely alternate view of the computer-talented mind; gregarious, vociferous in his opinions and endlessly spouting.

A contrast to another acquaintance we came across a short while later, who has, since we've known him over the years, had a succession of miniature Schnauzers.  The current one is named, as were the others, Schultzie, and he is six years old, an aloof, but nice little dog that minds its business and appreciates others doing the same. Over the space of a mere week things have changed enormously for Schultzie and his fond companion. So much so that the veterinarian who examined him, conducted tests and diagnosed him with diabetes - common in the breed - offered to 'understand' if he preferred to have him put down at that juncture.

All those tests, he told us, cost him $1,500.  And now he knows how to inject insulin, how to test blood sugar in his little dog three times daily, and how important it is to walk Schultzie regularly, despite his remaining lethargy.  He attends the same veterinarian clinic that we do, and the vet who looks after Schultzie is one we always avoid. Her enthusiasm for countless 'tests' and protocols, costly and unnecessary, initially put us off years ago. Our acquaintance wryly commented that she missed her calling of car saleswoman extraordinaire.

We commended our friend for his patience and solemn good nature and above all, his unconditional affection for his small companion. An affection well rewarded by his companion's responding love for his human companion.

It's that time of year. Again. Glad to see its arrival. If anything heralds the arrival of spring in the National Capital area, the blasting of ice on the Rideau River, around the Rideau Falls surely is the most significant.
 
And there it is, the long-awaited start of the break-up. Its purpose to prevent flooding along the river's watershed. Which is 3,800 sq.km in length, leaving 900 structures to be prevented from flooding. Quite aside from spring-runoff flooding towns along the length of the waterway.

Crews work a large rotary saw as ice breaking operations on the Rideau River between Rideau Falls and Hog's Back. Blasting will follow starting on March 2. All operations will take place weather and ice conditions permitting. The City, in partnership with the Rideau Valley Conservation Authority, undertakes ice breaking operations each year to alleviate possible spring flooding in flood-prone areas.   Photograph by: Wayne Cuddington, Ottawa Citizen

 

For us, it has always been an especial early-spring rite, when our children were young, to trip over to the Rideau Falls to watch, mesmerized as great pans of ice slide their way, along the river to come crashing down over the falls once the break-up occurred.

It's a spectacular sight to behold, viewing those huge frozen sheets of thick ice on their journey down river, slipping under the bridge and over the falls into the river below.

Sending up huge waves of frozen water to spray high above the river, leaving a foaming residue, and the ice pan to swiftly bob back to the surface of the river, then make its way down river, slowly beginning its journey to the melting stage with the eventual, inexorable arrival of warmer weather.

Work continues breaking up the ice on the Rideau River as part of flood control operations Monday, March 4, 2013.

Photograph by: Chris Mikula, Ottawa Citizen

We think of her often, with love and regret that she is gone. She lived for nineteen years and four months and we just couldn't imagine, despite all the difficulties related to her blindness and her mental confusion, that there would come a time when she would be gone. It is almost a year when on a Friday 13th she suffered a dreadful stroke that would result, the following day, in her death.

So when we think of her, and that is often, we usually recall what it was like, having her with us, how much of our lives she shared with us. And when we speak of those times we speak of our recollection of how she fits into those memories.

She was so much an important part of all our activities, our plans, our lifestyle. It seems as though we will never cease feeling our pangs of regret at her passing. The quality of our lives have been diminished to some undefinable degree in her absence. She lives in our memories.

And she lives on in the photographs that we have of her in her youth and in her declining years and in those long stretches of years between when we shared adventures and the best moments of our lives together.

We felt a little confused, visually. We weren't certain that we might be hallucinating. Were there four legs or three?

Yesterday fooled us in other ways. It was an overcast, cold, blustery day, yet it was far brighter than it has been for days. We thought with that brightness surely the sun was out, or initiating emergence, but such was not the case. The day remained overcast, some flurries came down, and it felt damp and cold, yet the day was surprisingly bright.

We were two-thirds through our daily ravine walk, had seen a number of people out, most notably three young adults and with them a surprising number of children. The children colourfully dressed, happy to see our little Riley trundling along in his coat, and appreciative of their environment, poking about here and there, taking their time. There was a bit of a bottleneck in places where the trail is very narrow and juts out over the bank of the creek, but we managed. It was pleasant to see the exuberance and happiness of the children, aged between seven and twelve, both boys and girls, about seven of them altogether.

Eventually they did move on, and we were left to continue at our usual pace, nudging ourselves along the various trails that intersect and make up the wide loop we usually make during our daily ravine perambulations.  Close to the last descent toward the last of the bridges leading up to our final long ascent that leads to the street, suddenly two large dogs appeared, friskily bolting through the snow, bypassing trails with little difficulty since the snowpack, with the sudden appearance of frostier nights had heavily crusted, and amazingly seemed to hold their weight, though they did break through from time to time, and it didn't seem to slow their enthusiastic progress.

They were in a hurry to arrive at where we were, where our toy poodle was frantically yapping at their presence. He had to be scooped up because we don't trust him not to lunge at dogs that he is unfamiliar with. The larger of the two dogs was a yellow Lab mix, the smaller, though not by too much, a Golden Retriever, obviously bosom pals.

But it was the larger dog that was the most fascinating, for his vast curiosity about us, and the yappy little dog in our presence, puzzling this curious dog for his obvious unfriendliness to members of his own canine family, however breed-removed.  The yellow Lab, like her friend, seemed young, probably no more than a year old. She was everywhere at once, her legs a symphony of pumping activity as she weaved and bobbed, ran hither and yon, forward, sideways, off to a cant nearby, then veering directly back to us and exuding friendly sweetness. Allowing me to pat her head, her back, then off again, and back again, as fleet and as steady as any thoroughbred.

What puzzled us, however, was the impression that we glimpsed, occasionally only three legs, not four. And since she would not stand still for more than an absent-minded second in any one place, it was difficult to get a good, positive look, so we felt, because of her confident gait and restless though impeccably stalwart progress that we were wrong; it was an illusion; she must surely have the standard equipment that nature gives all four-footed creatures.

Wrong. This delightful creature was possessed of three legs and the absence of the fourth, on her right front side, seemed to matter not one whit to her. She flew like the wind, even her companion seemed to have trouble maintaining the speed and dexterity that this three-legged dog exhibited. We were almost speechless, but not enough not to manage to express our admiration for this wonderful example of canine determination to the mid-20 couple eventually catching up with their companions.

We wonder if we'll ever see them again, or if this was a truly chance encounter.