March 29, 2019, walk in Rouge Valley near Meadowvale, Toronto

Walked this morning in Rouge Valley, first time this year. The snow was frozen on the paths and some paths were slushy. But the temperature was great, around 10 degree celsius. As it was a working day, no crowds at all . Enjoyed the silence. Saw the longest train I have ever seen go by through the valley. I recorded the passage of this train for 6 minutes...imagine it's length! It had 3 engines and so that itself predicted that the train would be long

The waters of the Rouge river was a brownish green and reminded my husband of the glacier waters in the Himalayas. The river was running quite fast...maybe lots of water due to melting snow. 

 Above is needle pine I picked in Rouge Valley and below is another type of pine I picked at Don Valley.

 Below are pine trees, ice covered ground and the Rouge river running with snow melts

One can sit here and meditate. At one point, during the climb, the only sound was of a tree! I guess a tree was rubbing against another in the wind and we heard a series of sounds. At first I could not figure out what that noise was..I thought it was some bird, and then maybe some person was working on something and after a while realized it was generated by one or two trees when the wind moved them to rub against each other.

I realize that I have hardly ever been able escape from noise...human made noise, especially traffic sounds.  How far away from civilization should one be to escape noise? Then, to reach that place, we need roads and roads mean traffic noises! If traffic could come to a standstill, once in a while, it will be so lovely ...we can then notice the other sounds ...like birds, the rustle of leaves, the rain, wind, flowing waters (and the cardinal I am hearing outside my window right now at 7am, March 30 morning).

My friend who goes to northern Ontario speaks of the silence and beauty there ...but the problems of being far from civilization seem to be greater than the advantages unfortunately!