For the last while this summer, irrespective of what the weather has been like during the day -- full sun or sunny with cloudy intervals, we've had ample wind accompanying it, and seemingly every day at least one thunderstorm. The sky seems to suddenly turn to that ominous dark warning of an impending storm and before we know it, the clouds burst open. Heavy volumes of rain thicken the atmosphere, pounding down with speed and density that leave us mouth agape.

 

This is precisely what happened last evening. At dinnertime, so anyone planning on having a barbecue repast would either have to exercise patience or turn to another method of meal preparation. We exercised that proverbial patience and when the storm finally abated and then stopped several hours later we made up for lost time.

When I think of the places across the world where wildfires are raging, where people are languishing in 40-degree-Celsuis misery I'm struck by the vagaries of nature and the phenomena of its elements. In British Columbia, where hundreds of new wildfires pop up continually in a lingering drought situation it is dry (no rain) -- thunderstorms with lightning bursts igniting the tinder-dry forests that is the culprit.

 

But as is usual here, the sky turns clear, the clouds disappear and the sun sits resplendent and powerful, it and its accompanying wind make quick work of drying the atmosphere of its rain-soaked situation and in the forest it hardly seems credible that the woods were so recently inundated yet again with fierce storms. The alternating combination of rain and sun, however, have produced an early, bumper crop of raspberries.

 

We don't get very far in our daily ramble through the forest before stopping because Irving wades into the forest bracken beyond the trails, to begin plucking ripe berries. The sight of the bright red, juicy fruit is irresistible. Jackie and Jillie know delicious fruit for its status as a summer treat that can be had on summer tramps through the forest. When our granddaughter was little and we backpacked her every morning through the trails, she too became accustomed to the bright red, juicy treats.

 

It was cooler today with an even cooler breeze which failed, unfortunately, to penetrate the forest, allowing mosquitoes to settle on warm, moist skin. Aside from that summer annoyance, our tramp through the woods this afternoon was mind-settlingly comfortable. While Irving was busy once more picking berries beside the pollinating meadow, I waded into the thickly-grown forest bracken to access the area where Black-eyed Susans grow in wild abundance.