Mather

It is hard to believe how bountiful the blueberries are this year - given the hot and dry summer we are having. We were delighted to go out to 'blueberry hill' this morning to find billions of deep blue berries warming in the sun.

Humans are amazingly adaptable creatures. Over the millennia, we have learned to live in environments that range from minus 45 C in the Arctic to 45 C in the Middle East.

We are blessed in the north to have thousands of beautiful, clean lakes. Nearly every one of them provides a refreshing "cooler" on a hot summers day. Lakes are living bodies of water. They are the life's blood of the world.

I wasnÂ't at home when the lightning struck. Allan told me there was a flash of light, a loud pop inside the house at the same time as the huge thunderous crash. The power did not go out. ThatÂ's the beauty of solar energy.

BY VIKI MATHER A huge bolt of lightning cracked the red pine as it streaked to the ground. It ran through the roots and smouldered overnight. Last week I wrote about the fire - this week it's about the lightning.

Stories. Our human curiosity draws us to stories. Used to be they were all spoken stories. These oral legends told us about our world, and our history.

A couple of years ago I heard about an old growth white pine forest that lies about 50 kilometres north of home. It's on the western shore of a small lake in Marconi Township, but nowhere near any of the well-known canoe routes.

Frost on the dock, mist on the water, morning is a beautiful time to go for a paddle. I'd taken just a few strokes when a great blue heron rose from the little cove across from me. It's gangly form rose gracefully.

May is a great time to begin to appreciate edible wild plants. No "garden" plants will be ready for harvest for weeks; in fact, I can't even plant the seeds until the middle of this month. But the durable weeds are ready to pluck from the earth now.

Sitting on the boat dock in the middle of the afternoon, I noticed a small crack in the ice. It ran 50 feet out into the ice sheet, two inches wide. Then it closed. Slowly it opened again. The ice was beginning to move - ever so slightly.