I was looking for a suitably soft and romantic video to share, unfortunately I found this one instead. When my wife heard it her Valentine's Greeting to me was, "What the hell is that?". Lindsay barked to be let out of the house, or maybe she was just singing along.

I'm sure somewhere in the Universe is a Master list of things that just shouldn't be done. This could well top that list.

If you want to hear something a little (well, ok a lot) different on Valentines day, you've definitely come to the right place. Indeed, you might never be the same again.



Now excuse me, I have a dozen roses to buy (actually, I'd better make that two dozen).

I'm not thinking of Woodgreen Ravine today. I spent all evening at a meeting with sobbing neighbours last night and don't want to go there again today.

Lindsay is certainly not thinking about the loss of the ravine, she is just delighting in her morning run, bounding through the deep snow with her usual joy.

We had another 20 centimeters of snow last night. The City is running out of places to put it all. The City budget for snow clearing has been shot and another major storm is predicted for Sunday. It will be two weeks before city plows can clear all the side streets. I love snow, but you can have too much of a good thing.

Two years ago my son-in-law was returning home after picking up our grandson from nursery school when a deer suddenly bounded out of the blinding snow directly in front of his van. Unable to swerve or break in time he hit and killed the deer. Sitting there stunned, he felt my grandson's hand on his shoulder. "That's alright daddy," he said, "Everyone makes mistakes. I'm sure Santa has other reindeer."
Repairs to the van cost over $5,000.

Back in October, my wife and I were out for dinner at a local restaurant and were being served by a young woman with an Australian accent. Halfway through our meal a customer came in brushing snow off his shoulders. The waitress stopped in the middle of taking an order and asked him, "Is that snow?" He said it sure was and she let out a scream and went running out of the restaurant. Of course she had everyone's attention by now and we could all see her through the front window, arms held out wide, head tilted back turning joyfully in the snow fall. After about 5 minutes she returned inside nearly hyperventilating with joy, head and shoulders matted with large flakes of snow, and told us all that she had never seen snow before. I'm not sure why, but the restaurant broke out into applause. I guess we were all proud someone liked our snow.

By now I'm getting tired and Lindsay has stopped twice to dig snow out of her paws. We decide to call it a day. I have a driveway to shovel (again) before I can leave for work. It will be a long drive in snarled traffic (again) this morning. The radio is reporting accidents happening every two minutes.

Yes, we've had too much of this good thing.

Lindsay runs up to the new fence blocking our pathway. She sniffs around the edge, curious at this new addition to the forest. Behind us the leafless trees of the Woodgreen Ravine creek and groan in the wind. In front of us are five acres of devastation.

All two thousand trees are gone. The developers had finally moved in with a 40 ton feller-buncher on Thursday and by the end of the day its massive blade had ripped through all the trees and uncounted bushes in the forest above the Woodgreen Ravine. The 4 year battle to save this young forested site on the Eastern most edge of Toronto had come to an end.

Bruce Smith, Director responsible for the Advisory Board of the Manse Valley Community Association, was in disbelief that after such a long and valiant battle, machinery could clear cut such a large area in such a short period of time. In place of a forest, the land was littered with five acres of fallen trunks and branches waiting to be ground to sawdust.

Back in November, over 30 local residents had successfully braved nearly freezing rain at 7:30 in the morning to block the developers entrance to the site. Don York, President of the MVCA had just submitted a brilliant and devastating rebuttal to the Toronto staff report negating the the area's notorious water drainage problem. There seemed to be hope. There seemed to be time. But there wasn't. This time the developers arrived unannounced and all the community could do was watch, and cry.

The Ravine is a five acre site, located near Lawrence Ave. E. and Manse Road behind the new 43 Division Police Station. This wonderful site had more than 1200 trees, plus an additional 800 saplings, and many types of bushes and flowers. It was the home to abundant wildlife including white tailed deer, fox, raccoons and a wide variety of birds. It was both a resting and feeding ground for the monarch butterfly on its migration to Mexico. The Ravine was used by people of all ages for playing, walking, exploring, meeting, or enjoying the fruits of a huge blackberry patch.

All of this, however, has come to an end. The City of Toronto, as owners of the property, sold it to a developer for the construction of 60 affordable houses. The developer is now in the process of clear-cutting the site, and removing the top layers of soil so that not a single blade of grass will remain.

There had been many reasons to save this environmentally sensitive woodlot. In addition to being a community meeting place and treasure, and a home to birds and animals, the trees help act as a carbon sink removing pollutants from the air, helping moderate the air quality in the area. The Ravine borders on an industrial site along Coronation Drive with a large concentration of chemical industries. The area has been identified as having the fifth highest toxic chemical emissions in the City of Toronto.

With continued population growth, all wild areas are now precious but they are especially critical where, by some miracle, that wilderness can still be found the heart of a City of three million, the economic engine of an entire nation. In such a large city it is easy to loose sight of the fact that we are a part of nature. And now with the loss of Woodgreen Ravine, it will be harder still to hold onto that knowledge.

The wind screams past our patio doors. Over night the temperature has plunged to minus 25C, only a few degrees above the freezing point of skin.

The television news is all about efforts to get the homeless off the streets and into shelters for the night. There are pictures of huddled bodies shivering on heating grates, soiled clothes covered by meager blankets.

I dress warmly to take Lindsay for her morning run. A sweater over a warm shirt, my Fraser tartan scarf from our trip to Scotland, my toque and then my parka with the hood. Mittens instead of gloves. Two pairs of socks.

The strong wind almost rips the side door from my hand. It has the force of a person pulling in the opposite direction on the door. The deep freeze has turned the snow brittle. There is ice everywhere and its hard to walk. In the rain-starved Carolinas and Virginia. similar winds have whipped up the flames of a massive fire. The TV news showed a solid wall of flames. But here the world is a block of ice. Fire and Ice, nature going to extremes.

The snow crunches under my feet and I notice Lindsay walking with great care. "I have to be crazy taking you for a run today," I tell her. She looks up at me. "This will be a short walk today." She turns her head away and plods on, the vicious wind whipping through her long hair.

Images of the homeless huddled on their grates return to me. None of them were the teenage panhandlers often seen at subway entrances or working the crowds after sporting events and concerts. Most of them would be the severely mentally ill unable to look after themselves in a society that has closed the doors on long term psychiatric care.

Suddenly my foot slips out from under me and I fight for balance. I don't fall but I am momentarily shaken. Four of our friends or family members have fallen on icy sidewalks this winter, injuring legs and backs. My step brother still needs a cane to walk two months after his fall.

I cut Lindsay's walk even shorter and we return to the warmth of our home where my wife has a hot cup of coffee waiting for me.

On Sundays I take Lindsay for a special run through the Rouge Valley. Like people who are "bears in the morning" without their coffee, Lindsay is unbearable without a long run to tire her out. Otherwise her friendly nature and Spaniel energy are just overwhelming.

We pass a line of joggers running tirelessly along the trail, each and every one with an ipod filling the silence in their head.

Lindsay runs with them a way, until she realizes I'm not following. Then she turns and races back toward me, tail wagging like a metronome.

I don't own an ipod. I seldom turn the radio on in my car. When my wife isn't home, I never turn on the CD player. When I listen to music, I like to attend to it, fully.

Even here in the Rouge Valley, you can hear the city rumbling in the distance. But there is one pathway, off the beaten trail, that winds further down toward the river. At the bottom there is a silence so profound, you can hear yourself think.

Lindsay and I always take this path and sometimes I'll sit for a while on a fallen log and just be aware. At times we're joined by the wind, or chipmunks and even once had deer bound by us. Sometimes, if you just take the time to be still, the world comes to you.