In our 63 years of marriage, my husband and I have owned three homes. We moved into the last of the three 27 years ago, and it presented to my husband the opportunity to alter, improve on it, and make of it an expression of our tastes and values over the years. In all of the homes we've lived in he had set about making each a reflection of our love of art in all its variant forms.

He has built furniture, produced his own oil paintings, designed and made stained glass windows, installed outdoor stone-and-brick garden hardscapes, built a garden shed, closed the open-concept interior of the house, built doors, re-built the original counter-tops in kitchen and vanity-tops in bathrooms, tiled floors, laid hardwood, oak-floored our main staircase, panel-lined one of the upstairs rooms for a library with built-in bookcases and so much more. He has never been at a loss for new projects to throw himself into.

And in each of those homes he set about finishing the basement. When the children were really young it was to give them more space for rough-housing and entertaining themselves; the backyard shed he built away back then housed rabbits, poultry and pigeons. In our second house one of the downstairs rooms their father finished held a 'stage' where the children could produce and present whatever drama appealed to their imaginations for everyone's entertainment.

In the house we currently live in, finishing the downstairs meant installing drywall, ceiling tiles, plumbing for another bathroom, and electrical work. Apart from the bathroom there is a smallish room beside the furnace room, and a larger, all-purpose recreational room in front of my husband's workshop. In that workshop he has produced so many things, among them countless stained glass pieces; inserts for doors he has made, and stained glass windows for our house.

At the moment he is in the process of finishing yet another stained glass window, which will have a twin eventually, to be installed within two swing-out 'shutters' he made to measure. Life is never, ever boring alongside someone whose ambitions and curiosity impels him to try his mind and hand at everything that appeals to him.

Weather forecasts keep leaving us in the dark. Both figuratively and literally. After days of freezing rain, yesterday afternoon was to have brought us plain rain, but what did eventuate was snow. Wet snow to be sure, but snow all the same. When we returned from yesterday afternoon's ravine walk with our two little dogs, it was clear enough that snow was falling.

The tempo increased as the afternoon wore on, but since the temperature also rose slightly above freezing, the snow swiftly melted, so it was awfully damp out. By the time we awoke this morning and came down for breakfast a light layer of snow replaced the ice-cover of the morning before. It too soon melted, and we took heart that the forecast for this day was for afternoon sun.

It seemed hardly probable that there would be clearing, observing the low, dark cloud cover, but the professional weather-forecasters were telling us the sun would be returning, so who are we to dispute that? And, in fact, by late afternoon there was the sun, burning through the cloud cover, lighting up our world and promising improved weather conditions before long....

We ventured out late morning today, with Jackie and Jillie into the forest. The trails that were still frozen and slippery yesterday, covered with knocked-down ice from the trees thanks to the wind, today were in melt-formation. The creek far below as we descended into the forest was swiftly running from the collected moisture of days in the form of freezing rain, ordinary rain, melting snow and the now-vanishing snowpack.

So, finally, the snow everywhere packed solid interspersed with layers of ice is seriously in melt-mode. Great swathes of the forest floor are being released. Ferns and mosses poking through, bright green now that they're freed from the snowpack. Tree seedlings that had been buried are now released from their prison and prepared to put on some girth over the succeeding spring and summer months.

The trees that had fallen the day before, thanks to the hurtling force of the wind and the weight of the accumulated ice, had been pulled aside off the trails and/or sliced through by someone's handy enterprise with a saw. Even more detritus has landed on the forest floor, the result of wind gusts that continue to blast through some corridors of the forest trails.

Now, finally, it's clear that despite the lingering cold, snow, sleet and wind, spring is finally exerting her right to be present and assertive against the reluctance of winter to say its final adieus this winter of 2017/18, but it is, and we're grateful!

Finally, the days of roaring wind, and whip-lashing freezing rain against the house came to an end. The temperature soared to 0C, so that, more or less did it. Or so, more or less, we thought. When we got up this morning everything was layered in ice as it had been the day before, only a bit thicker.

It was still windy and icily humid, and of course, a bit treacherous underfoot. But the temperature was rising and it rose to 3C, all well and good. A good time to stay out of the ravine, given the weight of the ice on the bare tree canopy which the milder temperature would be certain to loosen. And of course the wind that had accompanied all that freezing rain would in all likelihood had taken its toll of trees that couldn't withstand that double onslaught.

We had no idea, really, what would greet our eyes, going into the ravine. But since rain was forecasted for the afternoon, we thought we'd better get in there for a walk we'd had to cancel in the previous two days. So off we went. Surprised, yet of course not surprised, to see the litter of thick pieces of ice on the ground that had fallen from the trees as the temperature rose. Reassuring, in a sense, since if all the trees had shed their ice none would be coming down on us, as we got on with ambling along the forest trails.

It was certainly pleasant enough, the air invigorating once we were in the ravine proper and the wind was left up at street level; in fact left up on the street we'd just vacated. Here and there in the forest, immature trees had come down, but nothing really substantial, so that was all to the good. The litter of twigs, torn branches and clumps of pine needles was everywhere.

A bonanza for Jackie and Jillie who must think some superior being helpfully provides them for their chewing pleasure. Come to think of it, that's an accurate enough perception.

The trails that were sheer ice yesterday at -6C, were far less of a hazard today, to our relief. From time to time my husband felt compelled to grab me and guide me down a particularly slippery   portion of the trail but by and large our crampons do a very credible job.

It really felt good to be out in the fresh air. Of course the atmosphere was dimmed by the heavy overcast; silver above, silver below. We saw some tentative little wild strawberry foliage perking itself above the unfrozen soil and humus of the forest floor. Luxuriant mosses are freed and turning brighter green.

Lichen in grey and green, those tiny delicate organisms that must be among the slowest growing things on Earth, seem somehow more prominent despite their diminutive size on the trunk of the old spruce that had come down in a fierce windstorm a month ago.

Before we had quite completed our circuit, tiny droplets of rain began to fall. We had been given a clear window for well over an hour between the freezing rain and the rain. An hour later it was no longer raining, but snowing. Wet snow, but snow, withal.

My wings have been clipped, temporarily, as it were. Instead of being in the out-of-doors these last few days I've been viewing our exterior landscape from indoors-out, languishing in the house. I could go out, but it isn't advised under the circumstances.

Toronto suffered several days of pretty awful weather in an ice storm that was destined to move toward us, and it did. This kind of weather is more unusual for Toronto than it is for us. We've now had two days of freezing rain. It began several days back when my husband had just returned from one of our daily ravine walks with our two puppies. The moment he stepped in the door, the freezing rain began.

He has been taking Jackie and Jillie out for their ravine walks while I've been staying behind, at home. Previously the situation had been reversed. My husband was nursing a nasty virus that turned into a miserable chest cold, and while he was recovering it was me going out with our little dogs. I don't usually get colds from my husband, and if I do those colds always had a much milder reaction in me.

This time was different. I not only picked up the virus, but it landed with a vengeance. I'm now in the throes of acute bronchitis, and it is extremely annoying, to say the least, forcing me to become a home-body.

But we're nice and snug at home. Dark, true, since it is so overwhelmingly inclement out. The temperature hovered around -2C all day yesterday with a brisk wind, but is supposed to break above freezing by some time this afternoon, at which time the freezing rain should turn to plain old rain.

When we came down to breakfast there were long, thick icicles hanging from the metal canopy on the deck. Trees were packed with frozen droplets. In the final breakfast preparations, power cut out, but was restored in about ten minutes.

A most inauspicious spring this year, to be sure!

Our garden languishes in vain expectation. It is somewhat aware that spring has arrived even if the symptoms are pathetically faint, for it has nudged lilies and irises, tulips and hyacinths sufficiently out of their long winter slumber to raise their tentative green shoots out of the garden soil finally released from winter's icy grip.

Which doesn't necessarily mean that the soil has warmed to any significant degree. More likely that anxiety to prevail over the reluctant-to-leave cold of winter has prompted those early-risers to make a show of defiance.

The tedium of a winter that will not leave is disheartening. Not only for us but for the flora and fauna around us. We feel badly for the robin picking away under our ornamental crab tree, seeking out sustenance. When night closes in and the temperatures once again drop below freezing we think of the early returnees in reverse flight and shudder for them.

Our local raccoons no longer semi-hibernate and now once again visit our compost bins nightly. Picking away at the food waste that we regularly place there comprised of inedible fruit and vegetable skins, coffee grounds, tea bags, eggshells but also leftovers that won't be used by us that they delve into; stale bread, bits of leftovers. They delicately pick through the offerings and zealously clean up afterward so we won't have to. They have been exceedingly well-mannered.

A pair of crows regularly comes around to the front of the house to take part in the morning picnics comprised of left-over toast or pancakes. They enjoy the offerings but as birds generally disliked, have been subject to abuse, and are very flighty; any movement they detect from the interior of the house sends them immediately aloft. Unlike cardinals and doves.

The local squirrels don't mind their presence, and while the crows are settled on the rail of the balustrades on the porch where cubed toast sits, squirrels place themselves on the porch floor and take their fill of whatever offerings are present. Jackie and Jillie don't think much of the presence of other animals outside the house, viewing that 'outside' as part of their territory, barking and carrying on when they spot those 'intruders'.

The moment we utter one word they recognize as referring to our outdoor guests our puppies zip off through the house in a flurry of activity to the front or the back to peer out windows to see who has come around that they can loudly chasten for their impudence in daring to tread on their territory.

"I dig out my Canada map and scan the country to the east. A few hundred miles away, on the Mackenzie River, I spot Fort Simpson. Now I'm more than pleased that I loaded extra fuel at Tagish Air. After crossing the Mackenzie Mountains, I'll intercept Canada's "Grand Canyon" of the South Nahanni River and land at Virginia Falls, a 315-foot-high spectacle that eclipses Niagara Falls. Perhaps I'll stop at Glacier Lake, a wilderness rival of Banff's Lake Louise, or, if the weather holds, camp beside a lovely beach at Little Doctor Lake."
"The Cub climbs at full throttle toward the peaks of the Selwyn Range, where I cross the Continental Divide and return to the Northwest Territories. In dreamlike serenity, the Cub floats past 9,000-foot Mount Sir James MacBrien, soaring above sculpted snow fields as pristine as those of the Coastal Range until a glittering finger of water at Mount MacBrien's base finally slips into sight. I throttle back, letting the Cub slalom down to Glacier Lake, the crown jewel of the Ragged Range. S-turning through sweeping turns, the Cub and I descend through valley-cradled air."
"As I coast to a stop beside a placid stream at the edge of a quiet beach, a stellar jay flits toward the mountain's vertical face. My eyes follow the jay, then climb six thousand feet of glistening rock to the pinnacles far above. At the foot of the mountain, a meadow bathes in sunlight, green and soft as a fantasy."
"Spotting an odd-looking object protruding from the reeds, I remove my boots and socks, and wade through the frigid water toward what becomes a set of moose antlers. I'd love to take t hem home, but they'd never fit in the Cub, and they'd raise aerodynamic havoc if I strapped them to the floats. Still, I can't ignore such a find, so I haul the antlers back to camp and hoist them onto the Cub for a unique photograph. Backed by MacBrien's towering columns, the yellow Cub gleams at the edge of a sparkling stream, sporting a dark brown moose-antler hood ornament."
..."Immersed in mountain silence, I stand at the end of the float, trout in hand as a majestic array of snow-capped peaks spreads mirror images across the lake's opalescent green. At the head of the lake, the highest peak in the Territories guards the Cirque of the Unclimbables, an amphitheater of vertical faces that are sought by skilled climbers from around the world. Surrounded by such Macchu Picchu-like beauty, I understand why so many native Americans honoured the land and rejected the white man's heaven."
"An appallingly thin lynx walks into camp in the midst of my supper. Long-legged, with big feet and pointed Spock-like ears, the lynx strolls calmly past, not far from my hissing stove. It must be aware of me, but the scruffy animal hardly gives me a glance. Perhaps it had just passed through the depths of the endless ten-year-long boom-and-bust cycle of hare and lynx populations, and it isn't about to let pointless distractions sap its strength."

Sometimes you read a book that so entrances you with the quality of its observations, its setting descriptions and the lyrical quality of the writing, you feel you know the person intimately who is writing his account of a solo months' long trip to the Canadian Arctic. Minnesotan George Erickson, a retired dentist and amateur bush pilot who flies a refurbished period Piper Cub loves flying, loves nature, loves wilderness and decided he'd take time to make one last protracted trip.

He sees and experiences all that nature is capable of throwing at him, from forest fires to wild winds, killer whales, muskoxen, caribou and polar bears. He is calm in facing quick-witted decision making, excited about unique exposures to events that he can immediately share with no one else. Casual and practical, his mind and his appreciation of the vast area he traverses from Churchill on Hudson Bay, Chantrey Inlet on the Arctic Sea, Northwest Territories, Coppermine and Yellowknife.

He fills his book with the thoughts that pass his mind, memories of past such excursions with friends, and you are left with the sense that this man in his mature years has planned this trip as one that will cap his adventurous soul with 'complete'. But apart from his wonderfully poetic writing style, he is also a consummate story-teller and an erudite student of history, both ancient and current, taking in philosophy, astronomy, science, biology, human nature and the nature of survival.

I do read quite a lot of such books. Of personal accounts of travel to the Arctic, Antarctica, the Himalayas in period narrative form and through biographies. This American man's passion for the Canadian North and his love of the wilderness, his casual approach to his responsibility to his own security are all impressive, but it is his writing style that is utterly captivating. After reading a book of this calibre it's hard to settle down to successive books because your mind tends to compare writing skills and the capability of another writer to bring you sympathetically into the circle of their thoughts.

I had to put aside two books I started after reading George Erickson's True North, Exploring the Great Canadian Wilderness by Bush Plane published in 2000 by Thomas Allen Publishers. Eventually I picked up another: PaddleNorth, Adventure, Resilience, and Renewal in The Arctic Wild by Jennifer Kingsley, a young woman who set out with five good friends, all athletic like herself, accustomed to handling a canoe under all conditions, and determined to paddle the Arctic's Back River.

Where George Erickson battled ferocious winds, heavy rain, soot-blackened skies from wildfires, Jennifer Kingsley and her crew also faced raging winds, sea ice and wild rapids. They saw grizzlies, came across wolves frequently and saw caribou in their northern wilderness adventure of a lifetime. Her style of writing is also very personal, but with a kind of intense quality to it that speaks of tension, in contrast to Erickson's, with the good-natured quality of a relaxed mind.

And while Kingsley also throws in ample anecdotes of a very personal nature, they have a jarring effect and seem unwelcome, reflecting a kind of bemusement of someone uncertain of themselves. She too brings in historical accounts of the people and places being passed through, all of which give perspective to the time and place but somehow there is a feeling their placement is contrived rather than casual, in comparison to the erudite Erickson.

"Levi and I climbed the banks in silence until we could see unexplored ponds and steams, Lower MacDougall Lake, and the girls' abandoned camp in the distance. Turnaround time. Nothing to report."
"When I finally took my eyes away from the horizon to look down at the hillside below us, I slowly reached for Levi's arm. He looked at me, then followed my eyes. Four wolves were climbing straight toward us, padding easily over angled boulders."
"We stood still at first, mesmerized by the casual rhythm of their gait. Their legs chose each rock blindly yet never missed. Yellow-white twists of fur lifted and dropped with each step; their eyes fixed me in place. They climbed straight for us and showed no sign of stopping until two broke off to our right. Are they flanking us? Levi and I shrank back on our haunches behind a boulder, I unholstered my bear spray -- just in case -- and we waited for the wolves to crest the rise. After a few moments, Levi and I stood up again, but the wolves had vanished. I scrutinized each rock with my binoculars, picking out lichen and cotton grass, but we never saw those wolves again."

Clearly, Kingsley is no slouch in her observational skills and writing abilities. Yet to me there is something almost magical about Erickson's writing skill, his absorbing accounts of his activities, his thoughts and preoccupations. When he casts back to retrieve memories they somehow fit the narrative, whereas I found Kingsley's somewhat jarring. Perhaps a result of revealing a tad too much about her intimate thoughts; no one's concern but her own.

As Canadians we know that winters can be harsh, and certainly can seem to go on forever, well described by the word 'interminable'. Spring does finally arrive to rescue us from the winter doldrums, but in the Ottawa Valley it certainly takes its time. We must surely, every spring, repeat the same weary mantra: spring is on its way. There are signals, of course, even though snow is reluctant to depart the scene because the cold won't.

The song sparrow that companions our outdoor garden life, spring, summer and fall has returned. Its sweet melody brightening and sifting through the air and momentarily lifting our expectations. And when we're trudging through the still-ice-packed trails in the forest nearby our house we now hear the unmistakable gathering of crows, see robins grouped around the creek prematurely searching out live bugs, and above all, hear the sound of Canada geese returning north.

Yesterday the cloud cover was too widespread and dense and low to spot their famous V-formation trek through the sky, but we knew they would be settling on the Ottawa River before taking on the balance of their journey further north. When we were out in the ravine with our two little dogs there occurred some random light snow flurries. And as though to typify the flightiness of nature's sensibilities, we were also exposed to sudden, brief warming rays of the sun; felicitous but inconsistent.

We decided, after our ravine ramble to get in the truck and drive downtown to Byward Market where our favourite magazine and cheese shops are located, so we did just that. Jackie and Jillie were happy knowing that they would be accompanying us since we'd left their collars on after their ravine wash-up. Otherwise, as happens when we prepare to do the grocery shopping, they mope in the family room while we prepare to leave.

The drive along the Eastern Parkway revealed the vast expanse of the Ottawa River freed of its ice-and-snow cover, and the forest surrounding the parkway a sere, black-and-grey landscape of bare trees under an increasingly darkening sky. But it's always a pleasant drive, to sit back and enjoy, and that's what I did. I left it to my husband, who has now recovered from his chest cold, to do the shopping at the two places we meant to visit, while I remained in the truck with Jackie and Jillie, nursing my own version of the virus that had finally visited me as well.