Life has suddenly changed, worldwide and here in Canada and in our little corner of this great country as well. Yesterday an email came in from the clinic where our family physician has his practise. To advise all patients that the clinic is no longer actively open for business as usual. In-person check-ups and consultatons are out, and communication by telephone is in.

The medical profession as we knew it, where doctors always declare that without actually seeing the patient and examining that patient physically they cannot know precisely what the ailment is, cannot make an accurate diagnosis and cannot recommend a course of action, has changed overnight. Now communication is by telephone. In some instances patients may be admitted on a one-by-one, pre-arranged basis. A face mask will be provided and must not be removed, even if the patient is the only one in the waiting room.

Local and provincial health authorities advise that before heading out to a hospital emergency room, call ahead. They also advise preferentially, to contact your primary health care provider first. Whereas our primary health care provider is advising us, the trusting public that they serve, to go directly to a hospital emergency room should they encounter difficulties. Inspires no end of confidence in an already-confused public.

This morning, another email from the branch of the public library that we frequent to advise their clients that for the foreseeable future all library branches will be closed. Items currently out on loan will have an expanded due date and there will be no financial penalties imposed. Sport events, concerts, public swimming pools, parades, community centres, have all been postponed or closed.

All of this is alarming, disconcerting, implausible. How can it be happening? What's happening to the world? We're suddenly hostage to a highly communicable virus that refuses to remain where it first evidenced its presence so far away in Wuhan, China. Chinese cultural cuisine that relishes rare wild animals has had a number of dire consequences; the diminishing of wild animal species leading to the critical stage of species endangerment. We may not ourselves relish pangolin or bat soup or consider rhinoceros horn or tiger testicles to be scientifically approved as pharmaceuticals, but the world has become smaller and we are now integrated through travel, trade and communicable disease transmission.

What can we do? Be vigilant, become informed, take measured practical steps to protect ourselves; practise good hygiene and avoid close contact with others. So in that spirit we took ourselves off to the ravine this afternoon, under an eye-blindingly-bright sun, and mild temperature. Had the temperature been a little colder -- it's set to decline to -10 tonight -- we'd have bypassed the ravine in deference to its many interlacing trails turning to sheer ice.

But the trails today were even better than yesterday; the ice was mushy and the only slipping we did was uphill clambering. The snowpack is dissolving, and the snow becoming completely denaturized; it looks quite different than it had, newly fallen, and maintained in pristine shape by continual snowfalls. Now it is ravaged by the windfalls, by the melting temperatures, by the rain that has resulted in the past week. It looks grim and grubby. But viewed from a distant the landscape still has that winter-bright quality that entrances.

We came across very few people on today's ramble through the woods; one, a man and a young boy; another a young man and an eight-month-old puppy, a long-haired pointer mixed with another breed that made for a roguish-looking juvenile dog whose antics and frenetic rushing about were as adorable as its shaggy coat and enthusiastic face, inviting Jackie and Jillie to come along and play with him.

The effort it took to slog through the slushy trails was the price to pay for not having to take ultra care to prevent slipping on the alternative, ice-glassy trails that even our ice crampons sometimes slip on. So we were fatigued indeed when, after a particularly long and pleasant circuit through the forest trails, we eventually returned home. Walking along a very quiet street, where no one seems to stir, as though everyone is taking shelter in their home, fearful of what the future may bring.