We had a snow fall yesterday.. Well not so much a fall as a dust… but it is cold so the dusting remains today.. It is predicted that the temperatures will drop to -14 tonight… We have wood and wine… and one advantage of a small house.. is that it is easy to heat. so we are cozy… The sun is shining, the sky is blue and the birds are entertaining on the arbutus tree and at the bird feeder.

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I brought down the bird bath from the garden and I have spent the day keeping the water thawed for their bath. The hood of robins is gone now and there are just a few random merry men in the trees behind Annes.

I take the dogs up Owl lane at the end of each day for them to have one last shake of a leg before dark (sunset at 4:17 pm tonight). While I am up there I bring a load of wood down. We are going through about one wheelbarrow full per day. The wood pile at the door is full but I like to bring down a days worth each afternoon for those days ahead when it will be rainy and cold and I am not keen on the chore. As I go out the door I say I am taking the dog for a walk.

When we were young, poor  and first married we would house sit for my Mom in Kerrisdale and take care of her dog Abby. For Valentines that year we went to Shoppers Drug Mart and picked out cards. We then handed them to each other to read and then put them back on the shelf…. (as I said .. Poor)  Mom had a beautiful air tight stove in the den of that house, but no wood supply.. There was an abandoned house in Shaughnessy on the other side of 41st along the route we walked her dog. It had a huge wood pile at the side of the garage by the lane.. The house has long since been torn down and replaced with a gazillion dollar mansion.. The house, I repeat was deserted and we were I repeat, young… and we had an  admittedly suspect moral compass.

At night we would say to each other lets take the dog for a walk and that was code that we were going to walk by that house and bring back two pieces of wood for a romantic fire. Thirty years, our code for getting a load of wood is..”taking the dog for a walk”.

Our life of crime is over. Now I actually am taking the dogs for a walk.. and I actually do bring a load of wood down…. the irony is not

lost on me.