What I'm Not Going to Talk About

What I'm not going to talk about right now is what I was going to post as my pet peeve of the week. I'm not going to mention how I hit the roof last week at the post office, mailing off my OWOH packages. One to Canada at $11.65, the second to the U.S. at $4.95. Same box, same contents, same everything except it costs two and a half times to mail something within my own country than across the border. But I'm not going to talk about that. I'm going to talk about how I had promised to take Riley skiing again today. It's March break here and even though we've had weird melty kind of slushy snow fall from the sky, it was -19 last night which meant waking to cement snow. The sun was shining this morning and it was minus too much with the windchill, but we went anyway. And you know, I felt the same as the last time we skiied. That day I didn't want to go either because it was too cold but I had a great time and I remembered why I like cross country so much. Same for today. If only I had remembered to bring my camera.

Today it was just the two of us. There were a few other people on the trails, ones who were keeping a well kept secret - the conditions were much, much better than I expected and the wind was less in the trees. I noticed the buckets mounted on the maple trees as it's time for the sap to start running.

At the half way mark of our trail there is a cabane where we were going to stop for a drink of water and a granola bar but we found something better - maple syrup on the snow.

A little too sweet for me but the ritual of pouring it out in a line, waiting a couple of minutes for it to freeze, then rolling a popsicle stick over it to pick it up, the syrup mixing with snow crystals...It's a winter ritual here and today almost (almost) made me happy to be living here.

Shots all were taken with my cell phone which were impossible to see with such bright sunshine.

Back at the ranch, we had another guest - a repeat visitor.

Here, look a little closer, we'll zoom in. He's pretty well camouflaged, there is even a branch blocking out his eyes but I would bet my last dollar he was seeing me loud and clear.

He seems to have made himself quite at home in our neighbourhood even though the crows aren't too pleased he has moved in.

How to end this near perfect day? A glass of chilled white wine, a hot bath, a solid sleep after our work out. And I'm not going to talk about the postal rates.