Our Early Winter Ravine
The weather has been, let's see, just a trifle unseasonable. That is to say winter has come too soon. I have nothing against winter, far from it. Winter has its many charms, and we enjoy them all, just as we do those of the other three seasons. Winter offers us a very special beauty that, when first witnessed each year takes one's breath away. Of course icy winds and low, low temperatures also do the job...take one's breath away, I mean. As you doubtless inferred.
The temperature has been in the range of minus-6 celcius this past week by the time we've got out to the ravine with our little dogs for our daily jaunt. We're just slipping by that temperature range where we need to put the boots to the little guys. Their tender paws, as they are so small, require protection from the winter cold at a certain degree of chill. Thus far, we've been able to get away with their winter coats and they've been fine, although on several of the colder days we've had to lift the toy model up to walk over the bridges fording the creek, as the cold seems to be more intense there than elsewhere. But put him down and wind him up and off he goes, to catch up with his black-haired partner, almost twice his size, but still on the small side.
Most days we hardly come across anyone else walking through the ravine. Which means I'm able to remove the leash on the little one, the tiny male with the propensity to challenge any other dog he may come across in there, with the exception of those he knows and recognizes. Our female is older and wiser, and in any event was never given to these displays of testosterone-burdened foolishness.
I remembered to bring along the camera for today's stroll in the ravine, having meant to for the past week, to capture the beauty of the snow-laden trees and pathways. It is breathtakingly beautiful, to be sure. And one has a tendency to forget just how lovely, from year to year, until faced with its reality once again. Our boots crunch on the snow as we proceed, recalling memories of years past. Chick-a-dees flit about in the trees, their rubber-ducky chirps as amusing as always, and we hear the silly call of the Pileated woodpecker close by diligently chipping away, doing unlicensed damage to what appears to us to be a healthy evergreen trunk. In the distant sky the large black forms of crows send down their raucous calls.
We stop halfway through our ramble, up on the flats, past the casual group of hawthorns, to apportion small tidbits of doggy treats. Sometimes they're patient, waiting for us to gain that juncture, but today as they sometimes do, they've been leaping up at my legs, hoping to entice me to deliver the goods earlier. And each time I dig in one of my pockets to retrieve a tissue to wipe my ever-leaking nose (rhinitis, of course) they think I'm searching about in there (pockets, not nostrils, idiot) for one of their treats, and look entreatingly at me, little devils.
My husband tells me I should take a few shots where we're standing, where there is some colour to relieve the monochromatic tedium (which I approve of and he, with his painterly eye, does not). To the right, under and among the larger evergreens, stand immature ironwoods, dry leaves dangling in colourful bronze. Not too far from them, and around the bend are the beeches still clasping their leaves, very alike those of the ironwood, but definitely copper in tone. It's where we come across a middle-aged man, smiling in recognition, whose two fluffy little white dogs greet ours in passing. One, the female, wears a muzzle, as she, like our Riley, wishes nothing better than to challenge unsuspecting dogs-in-passing with a well-placed nip.
The snow underfoot makes it a little more arduous to gain proper footing, especially on the uphill clambers, and it exacts an immediate toll on me. I have to stop, panting, and rest until I feel I'm able to continue. At these times my husband, alert as ever to my needs, stops and encircles my shoulders, bringing me to rest against his solid bulk, urging me to rest a little longer. I thought the need for these frequent rests on uphill slopes was gone and done with. Back in the spring when I began the regimen of daily baby Aspirins I had experienced an almost immediate cessation of such feelings of fatigue. Now they've returned, dammit.
Because it's Sunday, and this is the day we're most likely to see other people in the ravine with their dogs, we've decided to put Riley back on his leash. He doesn't seem to mind. Button is fine without hers; she doesn't go looking for trouble like Riley. So each time we pass someone with a dog, we murmur what could be taken for an apology, explaining that our little dog is badly behaved, as we pull him away from an unwanted contact with their dog. Most people smile in understanding. Of course with people we are familiar with, this isn't necessary; Riley's predilection for confrontation is well known to them, but rarely acted out with their dogs, as he knows them.
Almost home, we come across someone we haven't seen for several months, who explains to us that his dog, a jittery female, had somehow become frightened of coming into the ravine and as a result he'd had to discontinue their constant forays in there. He was just now re-introducing her to the ravine and she seemed accepting, although she was continually barking at him to stop lagging behind. He said he was having problems getting up the hills, had to stop often to catch his breath. I commiserated, said as we were advancing in age, it wasn't getting any easier. No, he said, he wasn't feeling well, and he went on to describe his condition. A constant pain under his right ribcage, enough to keep him awake at night. His doctor had determined it was stomach motility, had given him a prescription, but he obviously needed an additional diagnosis.
Then we came across yet another occasional ravine walker, who never seems to venture too far into the ravine, avoiding those areas that require effort, but who nonetheless has come in regularly for walks with his succession of little dogs. He was, we reckoned, on dawgno3 at this point, all of whom have been named "Schultzie" to match their Schnauzer breed. The man has the look of a Scotsman, bred and true, complete with that odd, off-kilter nose and serious mouth set in a straight line of probity; the inbred actuary.
Finally, up, up the final long slope, to the pathway leading to the street on which our house and home sits. We're no longer cold, haven't been for the last half-hour or more. It's a fairly strenuous activity, climbing up those many hills in the ravine. All the more so now that the gravelly pathways have succumbed to winter's glaze.
posted by Pieface @ Monday, November 28, 2005
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