The virus pandemic has a rival circulating around much of the world. It's called Spring Fever. It took its time to hit, but finally, it did, and it has affected us, quite to the core. To the extent that Irving too has been enrolled in the frantic rush to meet spring's quite exacting standards for preparing to greet the following season. It isn't quite an emergency, we've plenty of time, actually, but there is so much to do ... Intimidating at the very least.

I cleaned the windows a few weeks ago, and since then they've become increasingly murky. Most annoying. I would have got around to having another go at them, but Irving beat me to it. He gathered spray bottle, paper towels, took himself outdoors and cleaned the doors. All of our doors giving access to the out-of-doors are glassed. Now they're also sparkling-clean.

 

He wasn't finished, though. One thing seems to lead to another. It was time, past time, he decided, to clean up and tidy the garage. So out came the vehicles, and a whole lot of other standing items. First off, picking up the newspapers that covered the garage floor. Newspapers? Well, yes. Every fall the car and the truck get the winter-salting oil treatment, to keep them from rusting out. A reflection of the use of road salt during the winter months, on our inhospitable roads and highway systems, slick with ice. The oil drips onto the concrete floor, but the newspapers spread out, catch the oil. No longer needed.

 

That all took several hours out of his day. Matching, more or less, mine. I deep-cleaned the kitchen and bathrooms, laundered linen, and looked after the puppies' needs. When we were all finished, Jackie and Jillie lectured us on our responsibility to them and we agreed. Today has been an exquisitely beautiful day, warm, at 12C, light wind, and a clear, blue sky, sun beaming beneficently down on her creatures.

Most of the trails in the ravine have dried out nicely, but for several areas stubbornly deep in mud. When we return from our forest forays, we hoist Jackie and Jillie onto towels on top of the washer and dryer (the laundry room is also our 'mud room'), and repeatedly sponge-wash indelible-ink-mud off their little paws. This ritual precedes their afternoon after-hike vegetable salad, the most favourite of all their treats.

 

 

Out on the forest trails, they're not entirely oblivious to the mud and do their best to avoid it as much as possible; somewhat like us. For the most part,there's nothing really to see yet in forest undergrowth. Everything remains bare and sere in appearance. Instead of the overall white background we'd been accustomed to for so many months, we now see desiccated foliage breaking down on the forest floor, and areas of revealed Leda clay.

 

The verdance of the evergreens now looks brighter than ever. If we look up, up, higher, straight up we can see at the crowns of maples and poplars with tentative new life appearing. It seems, day by day, to take forever in early spring for vegetation to push through the leaf-mass on the forest floor, and for the deciduous trees to finally begin breaking out their foliage, but in two weeks' time at least, they will.

 

We hear woodpeckers and robins, cardinals and chickadees all expressing their relief that spring has finally arrived. Today, we saw a sole Mourning Cloak, no doubt searching for a mate. For a beautiful Sunday afternoon it seemed to us that we had a monopoly on the forest; few others around. A state that dissipated when we reached the forest periphery at one point, and were greeted by a welcoming party anxious for cookie handouts.

 

We were curious to return to the forest wildflower pollinating meadow, to see whether the Coltsfoot we first saw emerged two days earlier were now more developed. And what greeted our eyes, on the banks of  Bilberry creek was swaths of bright little yellow heads; the Coltsfoot colonizing greater, albeit still-discrete areas of woodland where the sun manages to send its beams of light and warmth through the denuded forest canopy.

 

 

It seems that the wasps -- likely out of the wasp nest we had noted a few days back, since its fairly close to where we were at the meadow -- have also awakened from their long winter-enforced state of suspended animation called hibernation. As I took photographs of the wildlowers, I also saw wasps flying lazily about, and collecting pollen. 

Life emerging and renewing endlessly on the regular cycles of the seasons that nature commands. Along one part of the pathway was a dormant American bittersweet vine, twined around some low=growing shrubbery, still retaining its bright orange-red summer berries.

 

Though we looked again for the presence of the Mallards, the pair seems to have taken themselves elsewhere along the length of the creek, to find a peaceful area where dogs are less likely to fling themselves into the creek as a cooling off treat, and just incidentally swimming after the ducks, disturbing their comfort. We also looked for evidence that the schools of goldfish were still around, but saw none. At a distance they're difficult to spot if they're not outrown their primary state, and are black, not the bright orange we associate with the species, Our son told us Mallards don't normally eat fish, so they're likely still around, just not in eyesight.

 

 

 

Let's hear it for days of rest. That's what today was supposed to be, our day of rest. Oh, we do things, it's just that there's no urgency to much of anything, and it's kind of a restful/lazy day for us. We can look forward to obeying a sense of spontaneity, if something comes up we feel like tackling. But not work, heavens no.

I happened to have complained about how murky-dirty our beautiful old wrought-iron garden seat looked, on the porch. Irving had painted it bright white last spring, and it sparkled. Now, after a winter of local wildlife accessing the porch for handouts and clambering all over the garden seat it was grim and grimy in appearance. So off he went after breakfast to scrub it down with a soapy pail and brush, and move it off the porch until such time as we stop inviting wildlife over.

 

And while he was out at the front of the house, I decided it might be a good opportunity for me to get out as well and do some additional cleaning up. I mant to do a little light sweeping up; the walkway, the porch. Once I got out there, though, my intention had an argument with itself and agreed to commit to a bit more tidying up.

 

And there was plenty to do. Yanking up some eunonymus roots sneaking out of their allocated space in the garden, thinking I wouldn't notice. Cutting back Yew branches in a spring that saw more sun-burn on spruces and yews and even holly than I'd ever seen before. The wind had knocked down more twigs and light branches, aided and abetted by our local squirrel population. So I began to fill compost bags with cut-back and sweepings.

 

Then Irving and I moved to the road. Yes, the road, where one each of our large spruce trees, one on either side of the driveway, had shed so many needles and cones the street itself was littered with them. We swept them up, along with winter detritus. Usually at this time of year the mechanized street sweeper/cleaner comes along, but it hasn't yet materialized.

When we were finished and put away our garden tools, Jackie and Jillie welcomed us back into the house. We can't have them outside with us at the front of the house for the simple reason that our undisciplined little urchins run barking onto the road whenever anyone might walk by with a dog. It's simply too dangerous for them, even though ours is a very quiet street with little vehicular traffic.

 

A perfect day to spend outside, whatever we were doing. A high of 11C, and occasional peeks of the sun through a high and wide cover of luminous-white clouds. The wind had declined significantly from the past week, and had become a breeze. Time to snap ourselves together and converge on the ravine for a leisurely afternoon stroll. Which includes climbing hills, then descending them, since that is the nature of a forested ravine.

 

It's got to get a little warmer, and the sun completely out before we sight any more snakes trying to warm themselves in the sun. It's the perfect time to come across the  young of the year trumbling out of their underground nests. Always a fascinating experience to see them. The mature one we saw a week or so ago was so new out of the ground his colouration hadn't yet adjusted to light and his stripes hardly to be seen.

 

We did see some of the usual dogs out with their people for their daily legs-stretch. Invariably they come leaping over, long familiar with Irving who never comes out without preparing to hand out doggy treats. This time Jackie and Jillie made a beeline for two young women who walk two Goldens, and who hand out little treats themselves ...  while the Goldens situated themselves politely before Irving, waiting for him to haul out his goodies-bag.

Sacrilege

A group of Jews, including a small boy, is escorted from the Warsaw Ghetto by German soldiers in this April 19, 1943 photo. The picture formed part of a report from SS Gen. Stroop to his Commanding Officer, and was introduced as evidence to the War Crimes trials in Nuremberg in 1945

To Jews, ever mindful of Jewish history and a never-ending plague of assaults on their presence by communities wherever diaspora Jews have put down alternate roots, after their second expulsion from Judea, their ancestral homeland in the Middle East, the Holocaust represents an unspeakable atrocity committed by Nazi Germany with the considerable assistance of eastern and western Europe and the determined oblivious attitude of the West in general to their plight. 

 

When Jews repeat in their minds 'never again' it means that they will do their utmost personally to fight back against the persecution and defamation they are endlessly subjected to. 'Fighting back' is a passion expressed in the struggle for survival. Slights, born of an inbred, taught and sought discrimination  expressed against the Jewish presence has a habit of becoming socially institutionalized. It ebbs and flows, like the oceans surrounding continents.

 

A German in a military uniform shoots at a Jewish woman after a mass execution in Mizocz, Ukraine. In October of 1942, the 1,700 people in the Mizocz ghetto fought with Ukrainian auxiliaries and German policemen who had intended to liquidate the population. About half the residents were able to flee or hide during the confusion before the uprising was finally put down. The captured survivors were taken to a ravine and shot. Photo provided by Paris' Holocaust Memorial

 

And whatever continent Jews happen to populate, a minority group within much larger groups, they are always 'noticed' as outsiders. With that notice comes a degree of suspicion. A suspicion often a nudge away from contempt and hatred. For within the larger population there are always those whose antipathy toward Jews -- even and particularly if those haters know nothing about Jews, do not know any individual Jews, have never met Jews -- twists them toward rage against Jews.

 

There are Holocaust memorials erected in various geographies across the world, in a determined effort never to forget the stark inhumanity that humans are capable of exerting against other humans. Where governments and individuals embrace the opportunity to learn and to empathize, committed to ensuring as believers in elementary human rights that nothing of this dread magnitude will ever re-occur. And yet, on a smaller, and equally inexcusable scale, they do, and each time they do humanity is shamed and shocked anew.

 

The arrival and processing of an entire transport of Jews from Carpatho-Ruthenia, a region annexed in 1939 to Hungary from Czechoslovakia, at Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp in Poland, in May of 1944. The picture was donated to Yad Vashem in 1980 by Lili Jacob

 

Start small? With ignorance about the fact that a fascist horde schemed to annihilate the entire Jewish population of Europe, on its way to conquering the world for Aryan purity. That the organized industrial-scale mass murder succeeded to the degree that an estimated six million Jews were systematically slaughtered. The corpses were used to produce soap and fertilizer. Children and adults alike fed into death chambers where Zyklon B, a cyanide-based pesticide, killed them, and their bodies were shovelled into vast, non-stop crematoria. The odour of burning flesh and the ash circulating as particulate matter lifted by the smoke exuded by the giant chimneys to fertilize the fields of Europe. 

Canada was late to erecting a memorial to the Holocaust; but one was finally built and opened to the public in 2017. On a number of occasions, the stark, grey angular walls of mourning attracted professional photographers on fashion shoots, as likely backgrounds to show off glamorous designer apparel featuring poised, sleek female models. The photographers in each instance appear not to have known, or really gave no thought to the fact that their commercial enterprise in artistry and mercantilism in a place sacred to the memory of millions of people was an assault on social morality and values.

In the latest of these events, the photographer was scathing in his response to criticism over his obtuse choice of backdrop for a photo shoot:

"If taking a photo with grey walls as a backdrop is a crime, lock me up."

"If you don't want people shooting at certain walls in the city, you should put on a reflective vest, get a whistle and go stand in front of them year 'round."

 

Irving thinks and feels that we need a change of scenery. Two years and more when we've gone nowhere, done nothing outside of our home territory. Seen nothing new and different. And he is restless. We discuss the issue, and though we feel differently about the need to venture out as we have done throughout our lives, we both agree that we've always enjoyed our outings, planned or spontaneous. We both miss being out in different natural surroundings. And tooting about in a different environment just seeing different things.

 

 

I'm comfortable 'stagnating'. I always find more than enough to do to keep me informed and entertained and busy. So does he, but that extra element of satisfaction in life's offerings is missing. Particularly for him. His sense of curiosity has never abated. His willingness to go a distance to find other places of interest for us to be temporarily immersed in lives on.

 

So, we'll go. An enterprise that doesn't fill me with eager anticipation, necessarily. It's not as though we've decided to fly to an exotic destination, to take a cruise, and relax while briefly playing the tourist. That's not our style. We've both had opportunities in the past to travel far and wide, to see and live within societies different and not-so-different from our own.

What we're setting out to do is not particularly out of the ordinary, and readily achievable by anyone whose interests are similar to our own. Get in a car and drive the distance, stop over and puddle about, make a temporary home for yourself, exhaust the possibilities offered in a different environment. It's what we most enjoy. And it's what Irving is determined we shall return to.

 

That said, we take enormous pleasure in our very own home and community and its surroundings. Today turned out a weather antidote to yesterday's all-day rain, cold atmosphere and wretched wind. We reached a moderate temperature high of 12C, with full sun and a light breeze. What more could we ask for? Jackie and Jillie were ready to go off with us, no little sweaters for them at this temperature, so they were free of restraints as it were as soon as we gained the ravine and removed their leashes.

 

We were not the only area residents for whom the day was perfection, needing just the addition of a forest landscape to make the most of it. Not a lot of people, but enough to assure nature that she is fully appreciated. Despite all the rain most of the trail network was in decent shape. There are always areas that don't drain as well as others, and there the mud was deep. The occasional bicyclist going through has a tendency to ruck up the muck leaving a mess that we've all no trouble side-stepping.

 

We met a young man escorting two little girls in colourful clothing, who had never been in the ravine before. The children were smiling and happy and felt entirely comfortable with their surroundings. Their escort spoke with wonder at the trails, how he had just discovered them and let them lead him, and how surprised he was to see the pair of Mallard ducks in the creek. When we made our way over to the creek a short time later, the ducks were no longer there, but a pair of dogs was.

 

And it was in that area where the wildlife meadow is that we saw the first of the spring wildflowers just beginning to emerge from the forest floor. Coltsfoot, pushing through the wet soil, through the blanket of desiccating leaf mass. I was thinking that we might soon see them beginning to show their bright little yellow faces, so alike those of dandelions but so much earlier to bloom, and there they were!

 

 

And just a little further on, another surprise, though it shouldn't have been a surprise. We see at least one wasp nest in the forest each year. They usually hang from the branches of trees. This one, however, seemed to be attached to shrubbery that looked awfully like a row of red osier dogwood. It's in a replanted area, after the summer one of the hills in the ravine collapsed following sustained heavy rains, taking part of the forest with it. Remediation work was done to protect the creek and shore up what was left of the hillside, and part of that was replanting trees and shrubs that are native to the ravine.

 

World events -- and the news they give vent to -- are dispiriting. Harmful to the inner spirit as the intellect attempts to make sense of it all. Catastrophic events that are nature's expressions that no one can do anything to mitigate and the world just reels and copes. And humanity's penchant for destabilizing entire continents in its never-ending agitations inspired by covetous greed and deliberate disinterest in the consequences of embarking on wholesale conflict engulfing the world in a morass of atrocious occurrences of human suffering.

 

Without the stability of a sound mind to begin with, and the foundation of an intimate relationship of long standing, people are vulnerable to the succession of events that impact both directly and indirectly on their emotions and their lives. Little wonder the incidence within society of growing evidence of mental illness pervading society is so stark.

 

 

Even well-adjusted people who lead comfortable, fairly worry-free lives are deleteriously impacted. They begin to shun the news knowing full well that there is, in fact, no escape from it. And those who cannot evade knowing of dire events and how others are faring feel the emotional connection and despair. 

 

Sometimes it feels, in scanning the newspapers, that the entire world that you care so deeply about has gone mad. That the lessons of past historical events teach no one anything. That there is no escape from nature's induced events that control our lives is a given. That no one can come away unaffected by events orchestrated by the global community's governments, rulers, autocrats, tyrant and dictators is not quite as well perceived.

 

 

As though to make a dismal prospect of a day when news seems so crushingly awful even worse, we've got a grey, wet and cold day. And so, no relief, no opportunity to clear one's mind in good, clean fresh air, one's limbs freely exploring the space we live in, sharing an opportunity to cleans the palate of the thought process.

 

With that 'extra', unused-by-recreational-pursuits time, there are always other things that beckon. Irving, for example, finally decided he would sit down and grapple with our tax returns. With that 'extra' time I finished cleaning out the kitchen cupboards. But spring cleaning isn't yet completed; there's plenty more yet to do, and I'll get around to it.

 

 

Jackie and Jillie went outside to the backyard only reluctantly today, and only when their bladders felt really full, and only when one of us led them accoutered in rainjackets, while the other rubbed them down with towels when they re-entered the house. No ravine hike today, but there's no way they would agree to skipping their after-hike salad. And while I was cutting up vegetables preparatory to preparing dinner, they insisted they were in dire need of even more vegetables.

 

Thus went the day. Not counting the hugs and kisses.

 

Weather makes such a huge difference in our daily lives. We know instinctively we're going to have an exceptionally good day when we wake to sunshine. And that's just what we did, this morning. The house was flooded with light, dazzling, blinding light. More than welcome after yesterday's ongoing rain. And we would make the most of it. Jackie and Jillie from early morning, out on the deck, absorbing the sun's warmth, even though the ambient temperature was 4C. It  had struggled up from -2C the night before.

Our woodland neighbours keep making a beeline over to our front porch. We've spoiled them for foraging on their own for their sustenance. Irving promised that the two 50-lb. bags of shelled peanuts he was going through would be the last. He was finished with feeding the chipmunks, squirrels, birds, raccoons, skunks and rabbits. And he was almost through the last bag. But he felt badly, he would be letting down their expectations. How about if he went over to the feed store this morning to pick up one last bag? To last until the trees are leafed out and the forest floor turns green?

Alongside the newspapers awaiting our attention this morning, there was a package. I had ordered a few light summer dresses online, and they had arrived. Size small, light-textured fabric, colourful. And a style I look for in vain at retail outlets ... to which, admittedly I have not returned to in the last several  years during the pandemic. And they fit just right. I tried them on after I had done my chores, just when Irving returned from his trip to the bank and the feed store. The single 50-lb. bag he bought now is priced at $79, when in March it cost $60; a reflection of a huge rise in the price of shipping.

Earlier in the day Irving had contacted the good-natured fellow who works as a technician for the RCMP and conducts his own vehicular repairs shop from his home where he even installed a hoist so he could do some quite complex work. He also makes home visit appointments to do things like change vehicles from their winter tires to summer tires. Our good neighbour Mohindar introduced us to Greg, affable, reliable and an excellent auto mechanic. 

That done, we hastened to leave the house, into the golden day of sunshine by which time it was slightly milder at 8C. Enough of our friends and acquaintances had made the same decision that we regularly came across others with their dogs making the most of a lovely spring day. Even though we're anticipating another -2C night. Slowly but surely, we're getting there.

Jackie and Jillie, particularly Jackie, take themselves everywhere on the trails, back and further, spurting ahead, nosing about off-trail, sniffing here, there and everywhere. And then, there are the reunions with their friends, lots of doggy-patter to communicate. In some flat areas in the upper parts of the forest, beyond the confines of the ravine and distant from the creek there are huge pools of collected rainwater. The presence of which is inviting to dogs passing through

But it's the creek itself that calls out to the dogs who likely cannot imagine a jaunt through the forest without dipping into the ravine where the creek, swollen with rainwater and hurtling over the small rapids calls out its refreshing invitation to them all. It's the Mallard ducks' misfortune that when the dogs dive into the creek, they evacuate. They don't go very far, though, just out of reach, awaiting the departure of the dogs so they can return to steam peacefully through the creek again.

On our return to street level, Irving emptied our slot at the group mailbox, looking for the latest issue of the art and antiques magazine he subscribes to. What was there instead was a huge, heavy-duty plastic envelope from the Red Cross containing their public relations advertising and their latest magazine featuring all the work they've accomplished. Which makes me think twice, and then again, before sending them future donations since I'd prefer to support actual work in the field where it's required, not the cost of publishing and mailing out slick invitations to donate more and more frequently. Bonus 'gifts' to donors of pens and colourful shopping bags simply don't reflect my values, sent out by charitable groups.

We were up earlier than we prefer this morning to nip out to the supermarket for our weekly shopping trek. With the specific intention of avoiding crowds. We weren't really surprised to see that it was snowing. Light snow, mixed with rain...we call it sleet. The temperature had risen from overnight's freezing mark to all of 2C, and it was still snowing. 

Or course Jackie and Jillie reacted predictably. Their version of euww! Do we have to go out in that inclement mess? They're not impressed that we go out with them. Content for us to go out and leave them in the house. We have other ideas since the intention is for them to toilet themselves. They clue in pretty quickly that we'll be leaving the house without them. Jillie went back upstairs to bed to sulk, and Jackie followed us about pleadingly.

And then, when we put on our jackets there was a well-orchestrated howling. Heads held high in misery, yowling at being abandoned. The little drama matched the weather to perfection. And off we went. Some empty shelf spacing, but for the most part everything we wanted/needed was available. And that special bonus; few shoppers besides ourselves.

The collection area in the supermarket foyer for the food bank was stuffed with donations. The large crate that is supposed to hold everything completely overwhelmed, so shopping carts were parked around the crate, themselves brimming with offerings, ours included. The Food Bank trucks always come along on Tuesday afternoon, the day we choose to do our shopping. The community responding to those in need in another instance of caring for others.

Our oldest son will certainly miss the occasional company of a colleague whom he's known for many years, an amateur astronomer with whom he shared uncommon interests. His friend three times scheduled a MAID appointment (Medical Assistance in Dying). He suffered from end-stage cancer.  On the way to leaving this mortal coil, he opted for unconventional treatments, along with the conventional, at great expense, and each time he felt restored and cancelled his appointments. 

He was declared in remission but the cancer felt otherwise. Finally, he was in too much pain and had come to the end of any further prospective treatments that might help him survive. The third MAID appointment was his last. He was 75, a successful small-town businessman and had lived a rewarding life. Married, but with no children. This too is life.

After breakfast when all our shopping was put away we anticipated the rain/snow would stop. But it persisted, so I did a little more spring cleaning. Bit by bit I'm getting it done. Frankly, if I didn't extend the effort to do it all, it wouldn't make much difference. Once I empty a shelf to sponge it down with soapy water,  there's little to be seen to be sponged down. But it does give me a a\feeling of satisfaction: there...done for another year!

And still it rained; by late afternoon the temperature had risen again, this time to 4C, so it was pure rain, the snow had departed. At the earlier temperature, the snow that speckled the air melted as soon as it hit the ground, in any event. And since the rain by then was light, we felt that raincoats would keep us warm and dry, and off we went for our afternoon hike through the forest trails.

The trails that were so comfortably dry yesterday are once again swamps. There are puddles, large and small everywhere on the forest floor and across the trails. Jackie and Jillie take care to leap over them or sidestep them, sensibly enough. Although poodles are supposed to be 'water dogs' these two definitely are not in that category. They see other dogs, mostly the large breeds, head directly to the creek at every opportunity. If we could read their minds, they would be musing: these dogs are insane!

Could be they're right. Heavy overcast with just a few degrees north of freezing, the rain-swollen, murky creek is ice-cold. But there are those dogs, happily plunging into the creek, immersing themselves completely, becoming soaked to the skin under their raincoats. Soaked with cold water, exposed to the cold of the ambient air on a rainy day. But they love it, so who's to judge?