On Monday the oddest day of continual heavy rain events occurred. One thunder storm rumbled through the area, with lightning and thunder so close it sounded and looked at times as though both were attempting entry to our inner sanctum. We don't find these events the least bit intimidating; we do, after all, have the protection of the house around us.  The storms, at their fiercest levels inspire awe and excitement in us, we love to watch each storm unfold and then observe its raging onslaught. From the shelter of the house, of course.

Although on occasion we've been somewhat outside, witnessing the storm unfold from heavily bruised skies overhead parking directly above, thunder emanating, and then lightning striking and soon enough those huge gobs of sky-spittle consuming the atmosphere. When I say 'outside', I mean from within the shelter of the garage, with doors wide open and as close to the threshold as we can manoeuvre without threat of becoming completely soaked.

After the first onslaught, but before the rain had completely spent itself, hail began hurtling down, smacking windows, the roof, the gardens, and the deck, collecting in small white marbled piles, until finally all came to a sudden halt. And then, voila! out came the sun, in a widening patch of ocean-blue sky. And we thought the rain was over for the day.

And how wrong we were. A succession of similar events, sans accompanying hail occurred, with half-hour breaks between where the sun would evince itself briefly then once again the sky was overtaken with a burden of dark, threatening clouds and once again thunder repeatedly rumbled and lightning speared the atmosphere.

During one of those brief intervals, and while the rain was actually coming down at a still-respectable pace even while the sun was fully shining, we set out in our rainjackets for a quick ravine ramble. The trails had been scoured, the creek was a made over into a muddy slough dashing madly on its course, and nowhere was there a bird to be heard, nor any sign of wildlife.

We hoped we'd be able to make a shorter-than-usual traverse without being caught in another downpour. Through the canopy of steadily dripping trees we could still see blue skies and clouds that weren't charcoal but merely light grey tinged with white - or was it the other way around? No matter, we heard thunder despite the light-show of that burning disk. Still, we were fortunate enough to complete our little ramble before the skies opened up once again; which is to say closed completely over with the weight of dark clouds which themselves clashed to produce the sound-and-light show that resulted in yet another downpour.

An even later thunderclash resulted in a black funnel cloud close to where we live. It hit a golf course, and uprooted three century-old Maple trees.

Our youngest son took a few days off work last week as he often does during the summer months to take the ferry to Vancouver Island, and to drive seven hours to get to the northern tip on the Pacific Ocean, to do some camping, hiking and kayaking. He saw ospreys, night hawks, bats and eagles, and some other campers who set up tents to enjoy the good weather at an oceanside vantage. This is his idea of supreme relaxation, enjoying nature at its most remote points of contact, a bit of a change from his earlier venture only several weeks earlier climbing in the Stein Valley.

And on the weekend just past, he was in Whistler for the annual BioBlitz that he has incorporated into his summer schedule for the past decade. As a lover of nature he appreciates the solitude of dark nights in wilderness areas where the Milky Way can be viewed without the interference of light from urban infrastructure, and the opportunity to see nature in all its splendid variations isolated from the tampering effects of human activity. And as a scientist he is eager and willing to share the basics of interpreting the natural world we're surrounded by with the families who come out, fascinated children in tow eager to learn of the mysteries of nature.


Searching on the Internet I came across a video shot at the event, showing just how involved nature lovers become in introducing their children to nature. The video can be accessed at http://www.piquenewsmagazine.com/whistler/bioblitz-fascinates-kids-and-adults-alike/Content?oid=2466798 and it's well worth viewing. For me, needless to say, watching my son at work communicating his enthusiasm for what he does and values represents the personal reward.

www.piquenewsmagazine.com

• Photo by John French
• CRITTER CANOE As part of the 24 hour BioBlitz in Whistler scientists like Andy McKinnon and Bob Brett gathered samples of Whistler’s natural life and shared it with anyone interested at Alpha Lake Park.

Our street and its inhabitants, the people who live here, are steadily undergoing an amazing change. A change that has taken time to present itself, but has, inexorably, without our full realization while it was happening. It was so stable at one time in the sense that people who owned houses on the street seemed to my casual eye, prepared to stay. Oh, some houses seemed in particular susceptible to their owners, for one reason or another, moving on. And those houses, few in number, just kept changing owners for some reason beyond understanding.

When we first moved to our present home on this street, our three children already well on in their 30s and established in their own homes -- the very day we moved in, a new neighbour living directly across from us, came over to introduce himself and welcome us as newcomers. We soon became familiar with that family, felt grateful for their friendship and were dismayed when about six years later they informed us they were moving with their two young sons to Texas. They were all born in Canada, and as blacks, we said, why would they move to the United States, with its constant social conflicts between black and white? An opportunity to get ahead in his profession, a job offer he couldn't refuse. And they left.

In their place a couple with two young sons, one of whom was born in that house now live, aloof from their neighbours; she Canadian-born, he of Egyptian heritage and like the previous owners Christmas decorations came up early in December to join the colourful medley most of the street bedecked itself with.

Another couple, much older than we were when we had our first child, who treated their old black Labrador Retriever before the birth of that child as a child itself, added to the atmosphere of 'family' that prevailed on the street. And then they too moved, across country to British Columbia where his profession also dictated that he follow opportunities that beckoned. We kept in touch through the Internet for awhile, and like our neighbour who moved to Texas, there was a subsequent visit when they found themselves back in town, and then gradually, we lost touch.

But these disparate sundering of neighbourly relations have increased markedly as people for their own perfectly logical reasons decide to sell their homes and move on elsewhere; children having left, the house too large for the remaining parents; moving to be closer to where children live; moving because of job assignments elsewhere; selling because of marriage dissolution. And because new people move in, are introduced to those who have been there longer, new friendships are sometimes forged, sometimes not, as newer, younger residents are remote in personality and busy lifestyles seem to make them indifferent to relations with neighbours.

There are some houses on the street that have now been in the hands of as many as six different householders. While other houses remain with their original owners, grown comfortable in their homes and unwilling to leave, since why should they, after all? But it is slowly becoming a different street in general character; where once we knew pretty much everyone, even those who, though original owners, were never interested in acknowledging their next-door neighbours, we never quite know who belongs where, increasingly.

And with that distance in neighbourliness comfort, there is a sad sense of loss of community.

We all have our very personal problems. No one is exempt from them. We see our friends and neighbours and assume that all is well with them, just as they may make the natural enough assumption that no other than themselves is troubled by unfortunate circumstances in their lives that continue to afflict them and them only. We keep our misfortune, for the most part, carefully guarded from public scrutiny. They are our problems to solve.

And what appears to us to be dreadfully troubling and very personal is likely shared by countless others who experience the very same troubling details in their lives that make them miserable, shading their satisfaction with life a deep purple bruise of discontent.

But everything is relative isn't it? Where once mothers used to chide their children who left part of their meal on their discarded dinner plates, admonishing their disinterested psyches that children in Africa were starving, now we have only to look for the odd little item in our daily newspapers that remind us, alongside the large, blaring headlines focusing on brutal strife somewhere in the world, that our problems are minuscule in comparison to the plight that others find themselves in through an accident of birth and geography.

Take, for example, a small, very small and brief news-note at the bottom of an inside newspaper page toward the very back of the day's issue where the top banner reads "World":

India -- Children forced to live by parents' graves
Five children have been thrown out of their homes and are living by the graves of their parents who died of AIDS in a northern Indian village. District administrator Vidya Bhushan says they were ostracized by villagers who feared the four brothers and one sister, between the ages of 7 and 17, were infected with the HIV virus. They have been living on the outskirts of their village, Nishar Bano, one of the children told Eenadu Hindi television News. Authorities will be providing them with housing and organize medical checkups to allay villagers' fears, Bhushan said.

For the past fifty years I have been doing a set of limbering-up exercises on pretty well a daily basis. When I was much, much younger, not yet out of my twenties and living in the first house we owned, a modest little bungalow outside of Toronto, I used to do these exercises every afternoon during a quiet moment in looking after three young children, wearing only my underwear for comfort in movement.

And it was in the little living room of our little house, on the fair-sized rug that I would do this. Sometimes the children would find it quite amusing to watch their mother performing those strange contortions.

Once, I still recall, how horrified I was when I realized that there was a hydro service person up on a hydro pole across from our living room window, and he was watching the entire performance from his perch. I felt absolutely mortified. And angry with myself for having been caught out in this way, creating a little intimate pantomime in the privacy of my living room for the satisfaction of a curious man who was probably decent enough, but whose visual lock on my window infuriated me.

I had felt compelled to do these exercises -- and to continue doing them to this day -- initially after the birth of our third child. My sister-in-law was someone who was forever critical of other peoples' physical appearance. To gain weight was the most unsightly thing she could imagine and she upbraided me for having done just that. I had the makings of a double chin, she said, and my stomach protruded in the most unfashionable way, shame on me.

This, from a woman who smoked cigarettes incessantly and frequently drank liquor, who thought nothing of eating junk food and in fact raised her children on take-out food at a time when it was far less common to do so than now. But I also realized that at my then-young age gaining weight was not a complement to a healthy lifestyle, and thus began my little exercise routine. And it is a little routine; stretching, bending, flinging about my arms and my legs in various positions from standing to prone.

The upside of all those years of exercise is not that it has helped to keep me from becoming overweight, but it has kept me flexible, able at age 76 to touch my toes with no effort expended whatever, even lay my hands flat on the floor before me. Gardening, cleaning our house, going for hikes during the day all help as well, but it is the exercises that have ensured my physical flexibility, and I treasure that.

As for my sister-in-law she had double heart-pass surgery many years ago. And, it would appear, she continued smoking regardless. Until she finally died of heart failure about a decade ago. Dressing becomingly was an important lifetime satisfaction ingredient for her. While I share that inclination, what I hold important in my life far transcends what I'm wearing at any given time.

When we were young and in Grade School, we were taught, during music classes, some of Canada's patriotic songs, along with what was then termed "Negro spirituals", English folk songs and American ones as well. Among them was the folk song about Charming Billy and the cherry pie his beloved who was too young to leave her mother, was able to bake as quick as a cat could blink its eye.

Funny thing that; how quick can one possibly bake a cherry pie, after all, since the time-consuming task of de-stemming and pitting come first? I used to have a really neat little gadget that made pitting the stones of cherries quick work. Unfortunately, I am one of the world's lamentable klutzes, and I tend to either break or lose useful items. I have long since given up on that little pitter, and have never found a replacement. My right thumbnail is employed now for that purpose.

Not that I bake cherry pies all that often. But since cherries are now in season and plentiful, aside from eating them as is, the occasional cherry pie seems called for. When we were young, living in our first flat and I was first experimenting with baking I'd baked a cherry pie, and in transporting it from the oven to the table where it was meant to cool I slipped and believe me cherry pie filling, hot and juicy and sticky cast about everywhere in a kitchen makes an awful mess.

Much later, in our second house, where we raised our children from their teen years into adulthood we had planted a Manchu cherry bush. It grew to maturity, had delightful flowers in early spring which burly bees just adored, and eventually it produced cherries. That bush occasioned us the wherewithal for a good share of cherry pies.

Time and age have taught me some elements of caution, but not overwhelmingly so; though I've never dashed another fruit pie over my kitchen, I do keep misplacing, losing or breaking pottery, kitchen utensils and other such items. I thought of that old English Billy-Boy tune while I was pitting the cherries. My husband offered to do the pitting; I demurred. He offered to "stand by me", which is to say beside me at the kitchen sink and share the de-stoning task with me, but I laughed him off.

Unlike the Little Red Hen story where no one offered to help in planting, gathering and threshing the wheat to bake the bread, however, this pie will be offered up for my husband's delectation  -- a loving gift from me to him.

It may at long last be a sad mystery solved, but how very tragic it is. A few days ago at La Peche, Quebec, a man walking his dog found that his canine companion had scrubbed about and dug up some bones. Later rests confirmed them to be human remains. And now police are fairly certain they must be the remains of a former Carleton University professor, who at age 77 had become a missing person.

He had last been seen by a neighbour in the small rural community, walking his dog up Hogan Road. This was on a September afternoon in 2007. The dog returned home, George Roseme did not. And a day later a neighbour reported him to be missing. A former political science professor at the university and once a star javelinist who almost made the 1950 Olympic team in the United States, it was known by those near him that he had been diagnosed in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease.

Although originally from California, he had settled down in rural Quebec after his retirement. His daughters had remained in California. Roseme family members came to Quebec with the concern that authorities would not thoroughly search for their missing senior family member. It is a landscape of forested hills and heavy brush, and endless trails weaving through the beautiful area where the National Capital Commission's Gatineau Park neighbours.

A sublimely lovely natural landscape where when our children were in their growing and teen years we would spend endless hours, hiking and canoeing, and berry-picking.

But a concerned and concentrated search had indeed taken place. One that went on for ten days by land, air and with the use of tracer dogs. Helicopter and search-and-rescue teams were unable to turn up any sign of his whereabouts. A death certificate was never issued. In Quebec civil law a coroner may issue a death certificate in the absence of a body only after a missing person has been absent for over seven years.

Details of precisely where the bones were discovered, how close they were to George Roseme's house have not been released. And although there is certainty in the minds of police and neighbours that the uncovered bones are indeed those of George Roseme, forensic tests are yet to take place. And it is hoped that the tests will reveal the cause of death.

A perfect day, we thought, for a drive along the western Parkway alongside the Ottawa River, downtown to Byward Market. We'd had a break from the extreme heat and humidity followed by thunderstorms and yesterday peaked at 29-degrees, so why not a drive after our amble in the ravine?

The beautiful dark thoroughbred horses with the acclaimed RCMP musical ride were not in their paddocks as we passed the area, but there were countless small privately-owned planes parked on the expansive tarmac alongside the Aviation Museum, and later, when we were at the Byward Market, I looked up to see a colourful biplane overhead, tiny in the vast blue sky.

We passed 24 Sussex Drive, the Governor-General's residence, the large Brutalist-modern Department of Foreign Affairs, then the assorted Mid-East embassies, their white-stone exteriors cool-looking against the bright heat of the afternoon sun; the Royal Canadian Mint, the National Gallery, the Peacekeeping Monument and turned down toward Byward Market.

First stop was the magazine shop operated now by a handsome Somalian immigrant whose greeting smile was infectious and welcoming as always.

From there to our favourite cheese specialty shop. The array of colourful garden plants for sale, alongside booths crammed with irresistible baskets of local (and not) fruits and vegetables enticing us to come away with Niagara peaches, Quebec strawberries and local new potatoes.

A day of beautiful sights and smells, concluding with the entertaining pleasure of more of nature's light-and-sound shows, looking after the watering needs of our summer gardens.

This is one of those truly unimaginable events; who might have in their wildest nightmares believed that a casual tooth-scratch from a beloved pet would result in multiple limb amputations? It can happen.

It happened to a 49-year-old single mother of four who also happened to have four canine companions in her home. Playing tug-of-war with two of those beloved dogs resulted in a casual accident that left Christine Caron with a slight wound on one of her knuckles where her little three-year-old Shih Tzu grazed her.

Two days later Christine Caron fell into a coma that lasted a month and a half. When she woke from that coma doctors informed her that all of her limbs would have to be amputated. She would become a quadriplegic. How do you absorb that information other than to fall under the mind-saving delusion that you are in a deep sleep emulating awareness and if you struggle hard enough you'll wake up from a nightmare that is plaguing you?

The Public Health Agency of Canada advises that the infection that assaulted Christine Caron has occurred a mere 200 times worldwide since 1976. The bacteria Capnocytophaga canimorsus is common in dog saliva. Despite which it rarely leads to human infection. It did with Christine Caron. When her other three dogs sensed her injury they all lined up helpfully to lick the wound.

A life-altering event ensued. And then, when Christine Caron was feeling her most helpless, one of the surgeons said he was able to detect life in her right hand. That arm and hand could be saved. And rehabilitated, so in time she would be able to use it again, despite the loss of her other limbs.

Christine Caron, 49, lost her legs and one arm after she contracted an infection from a dog bite in May.  Photograph by: Cole Burston , Ottawa Citizen

It's not all that often that we come across others during our daily ravine walks. A few days back, however, on the return portion of our circuit when we had drawn close to the last uphill climb we came across a young couple, the man struggling to push a baby stroller up the short hill we were then descending. We stopped to greet them coming from the opposite direction and were asked our opinion of the feasibility of the stroller going much further on the trails. This was obviously their first venture.

So we explained where they might go to encounter less resistance, but the ravine is a ravine and it is full of hills and awkward and 'inconvenient' curves and dips, the trails sometimes passing between trees with not much room to manoeuvre, and tree roots disturbing easy passage. We recommended a baby backpack, as we made do with for the first two years of our granddaughter's life when we hauled her in for daily walks.

But on Sunday we came across old acquaintances, preceded by a delightful little King Charles Spaniel puppy accompanied by a relatively small-sized fully grown fawn-coloured boxer. While both dogs were friendly the puppy was endearingly and sloppily eager in his attempts to become familiar and cuddle with our boots. A few moments later we heard a familiar Liverpudlian voice alerting us to the identity of the dogs' companions.

Twenty years ago we would almost daily come across others with whom we became ravine-companionable, people like ourselves out strolling in the forested area of our wider neighbourhood, grateful for the presence of this patch of wilderness in the sprawl of a large city's suburban area. In that twenty years the canine companions of our acquaintances slowly died off. Some of them acquired replacements for their beloved pets -- most often the same breed, consoling them to their loss and reminding them of the original one they had loved and then mourned.

But daily encounters that we had experienced in the early years fell off dramatically. It was as though the passing of the original dogs had so disheartened their owners that they somehow connected the ravine with their irreplaceable loss and with a heavy heart began to avert its long trails and the painful encounters with old acquaintances who still had their cherished pets with whom their own, now lost, used to joyfully greet and play with.

For this couple, the sweet little multi-coloured, silken-haired creature we saw represented the third time around. We had heard not all that long ago from another acquaintance also now rarely seen, with his own original-replacements, that they had lost both of their beloved dogs. So here was the replacement third time around, and with it the companion animal of their daughter, visiting them from Vancouver.

We chatted amiably, the men off to a side and the three women speaking of things that women speak of; first the acquisition of that adorable mite we all watched gambolling about clumsily, curious about everything it saw, tumbling about following the two-year-old boxer, emulating what it did. Talk turned to family and I was asked about mine, and responded with the latest news to fill an eight-month gap. The daughter was divorced, her twelve-year old child remained behind in Vancouver, gone on a Sechelt camping trip with her father whose new girlfriend the little girl resented.

Now that's a burden, I thought; recently lost two beloved pets, had to adjust to a daughter's divorce, and missing seeing a grandchild on a trip that left her temporarily in her father's care. Little did I realize there was more, much more, related to my husband by her husband as they stood apart, speaking of things we hadn't.

After an inordinately lengthy period of chatting, and parting, my husband informed me why it was that our friend looked so exhausted, ill-kempt, so unlike herself. Amazingly, while she mentioned nothing of it to me, her husband had informed mine that their only son, 47 years of age, latterly ill, separated from his own family had been living with them -- and just very recently died.

On our return trip we passed one another again; the goofy puppy, the alert and beautifully conformationed boxer, the friendly, overweight daughter, and the older couple we'd known however remotely for two decades. Not many more words passed between us, but we two older women clasped and hugged one another before finally turning away.

Just as I passed out the last flyers, a tall, pecan-colored man entered the room. He wore a blue, double-breasted suit and a large gold cross against his scarlet tie. His hair was straightened and swept back in a pompadour.

"Brother Smalls, you just missed an excellent presentation", Reverend Reynolds said. "This young man, Brother Obama, has a plan to organize a meeting about the recent gang shooting."

Reverend Smalls poured himself a cup of coffee and perused the flyer. "What's the name of your organization?" he asked me.

"Developing Communities Project."

"Developing Communities..." His brow knotted. "I think I remember some white man coming around talking about some Developing something or other. Funny-looking guy. Jewish name. You connected to the Catholics?"

I told him that some of the Catholic churches in the area were involved.

"That's right, I remember now." Reverend Smalls sipped his coffee and leaned back in his chair. "I told that white man he might as well pack up and get on out of here. We don't need nothing like this around here."

"I---"

"Listen ... what's your name again? Obamba? Listen, Obamba, you may mean well. I'm sure you do. But the last thing we need is to join up with a bunch of white money and Catholic churches and Jewish organizers to solve our problems. They're not interested in us. Shoot, the archdiocese in this city is run by stone-cold racists. Always has been. White folks come in here thinking they know what's best for us, hiring a buncha high-talking college-educated brothers like yourself who don't know no better, and all they want to do is take over. It's all a political thing, and that's not what this group here is about."

I stammered that the church had always taken the lead in addressing community issues, but Reverend Smalls just shook his head. "You don't understand", he said. "Things have changed with the new mayor. I've known the district police commander since he was a beat cop The aldermen in this area are all committed to black empowerment. Why we need to be protesting and carrying on at our own people? Anybody sitting around this table got a direct line to City Hall. Fred, didn't you just talk to the alderman about getting that permit for your parking lot?"

The rest of the room had grown quiet. Reverend Reynolds cleared his throat. "The man's new around here, Charles. He's just trying to help."

Reverend Smalls smiled and patted me on the shoulder. "Don't misunderstand me now. Like I said, I know you mean well. We need some young blood to help out with the cause. All I'm saying is that right now you're on the wrong side of the battle."

I sat there, roasting like a pig on a spit, as the pastors went on to discuss a joint Thanksgiving service in the park across the street. When the meeting was over, Reverend Reynolds and a few of the others thanked me for coming. 

"Don't take Charles too seriously", one of them advised. "He can be a little strong sometimes." But I noticed that none of them left with my flyers; and later in the week, when I tried to call some of the ministers back, their secretaries kept telling me they were gone for the day.

Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, Barack Obama

Yesterday afternoon the predicted thunderstorms descended with a vengeance. Rolling thunder with serious intent roiled the airwaves and lightning informed us that these, one after another, would be no ordinary rain events. When the rain descended it was copious; large drops of rain crowding one another in one furious wave after wave of assaults from the dark vault above.

We experienced warning flickers of energy loss; our electricity was cut off several times, but was swiftly restored. One of those occasions was when I was speaking with my granddaughter who had called on her cellphone to inform me their power was out entirely. There was a tremendous clap of thunder nearby as I sat with the telephone close by the patio doors streaming with rain so thick that vision was almost obliterated.

The scene outside was dark and menacing. I admit to finding it not the least bit threatening; I have always enjoyed the amazing spectacles that such storms presented.  Lightning informed me, however, that I might wish to move my position, and then the house lights went off with a pop, and the telephone connection clicked off.

Later, in the evening, after a series of thunderstorms had passed and we were informed by Environment Canada that the threat of ongoing storms hadn't abated and were expected to continue throughout the night, along with a watch on potential tornadoes setting down, we ventured out during a break in the celestial proceedings. The sky was aflame with bright fire, the moon visible above our garden sheds, and the intense heat of the day had dissipated to a pleasant, cooling breeze.

We walked along together to inspect the damage accrued in the gardens, and to make note of what would have to be tied up, cut back, tidied up the following day. And today, after a lengthy ravine walk, I can say: mission accomplished.

Oppressively stifling, that's how it feels, the atmosphere hot, humid and wind-blown. At least the wind and the extreme heat keeps mosquitoes at bay; they're few and far between now, and that's something to be thankful for. We set out on our ravine walk a little earlier than is usual for us on a Friday. I always have things I like to get done first, and this morning it was preparing a bread dough for tomorrow's pizza, baking a pear pie for this evening, and putting a chicken soup on to cook for this evening as well. And tidying up the house.

It was just nudging noon and already just over 30-degrees Celsius. There is relief down in the ravine, under the canopy of the forest trees, and the wind did shift the cloyingly thick air around. We thought that we were fairly safe from extreme weather events that Environment Canada warned were on the near horizon an hour before we set out on our walk. There was still plenty of blue sky that could be seen beyond the thick white bubbles of clouds that were scudding past, bullied by the wind.

And our walk, albeit hot, was pleasant enough. The bedding grasses are still offering up their heated fragrance, and we noted the drooping clusters of bright-red cherries hanging high above on pin cherry trees, very similar to the clusters on the red baneberry plants on the forest floor. More safely edible fruits are beginning to ripen; raspberries, and soon enough will follow the thimbleberries whose large bright pink flowers are more decorative than most flowering berry plants.

The milkweed are beginning to flower as well as those lovely tall wild sunflowers, elecampagne. There is yarrow in bloom alongside Queen Anne's lace, fleabane with its perfect little pink flowerheads, yellow loosestrife, cinquefoil, purple-blue bugloss, and twining itself over all of them, cowvetch with its fetching purple bellflowers. They cluster where the trees have been set back on a height in the ravine that was once, I recall, a bit of a meadow where since trees have grown.

The extreme weather events that Environment Canada warned of did eventually reach us as the blue of the sky was overcome with tall, threatening and dark thunderheads and thunder and lightning rumbled above finally culminating in an initial heavy downpour, and an afternoon of repeating thunderstorms. The threat of tornadoes coming through this direct area hasn't yet passed, but as far as we can determine, no such events have occurred.

We saw the surprising damage such swift wind descents can provoke several years back when a number of very aged and beautiful old pines had been tossed aside like matchsticks in the path of a mini-tornado that had touched down in the ravine.

It is hot, and it is humid. The sun scorches everything its rays touch on these July days of extended heat wave. Plants wilt in its fierce heat, evoking pity in the heart of the gardener. We get out a little early these days to the garden to ensure that vulnerable plants are watered sufficiently to withstand the pounding heat of the coming hours. It's been about four days since we've been 'enjoying' 30-degree weather. We've perhaps another several days to go before this front finally moves off.

Yesterday when we embarked on our usual ravine walk, despite feeling uncertain whether we really felt like committing to it, the thermometer read 34.4 degrees Celsius, and when we returned an hour later it hadn't budged. While out there in the ravine the heat was oppressive but not beyond our capacity of endurance. We took our time along the trails and nudged ourselves slowly uphill. Riley didn't do too badly; he takes his time in any event, regardless of the weather conditions. Getting out like this is best for all of us, breaking up the day and exposing us to fresh air and exercise.

While we were trekking through the humid atmosphere, we noted that the muck that had prevailed on certain parts of the trail and never had the opportunity yet to dry because of the plentiful rains that have also blessed us this year, are still mucky though trying their best to dry out. About one-third of the way through yesterday's circuit we heard thunder in the far-off distance. Thunderstorms, at times violent, were predicted in any event, we knew that.

The sky was mostly blue with some clouds moving in. A bit of wind moving the over-heated air, still gave an element of comfort briefly in the fond hope that stray anomalies of cool would greet our melting skin at some point. Delusional, of course. Once we arrived back home the thunderheads assembled in their dark warning and thunder began to rumble in earnest, while the light disappeared into an early dusk. And the rain came down, tentatively at first, then increasingly. The drops seemed to lose their moisture in mid-air; hardly anything appeared to touch the ground.

Venturing out into the rain I hardly felt it touch my skin. I was under the illusion that it wasn't raining at all, simply threatening to. Until I entered the house and realized that I was indeed wet with rain.

For the second day in a row when going out to look around the front gardens I appear to have disturbed a squirrel taking refuge from the heat within the considerable canopy of one of our weeping mulberry trees. I heard a commotion, saw some leaves detach and drift to the ground, and watched as a small black squirrel disentangled itself from the knot of branches under the leafy outer coverage and make an acrobatic leap over the walkway onto the cypress beyond,

in its anxious struggle to escape possible predation.

And this morning, while my husband was out mowing the grass he watched as a juvenile rabbit ran out from under our neighbour's fence over to the shelter of our shade garden at the side of the house, secreting himself within the umbrellas of the large old hostas growing there.

Button was our companion in outdoor adventures for almost twenty years. She was a little dog invested in exploring the unknown, and she was fascinated by water. When we took her canoeing with us it was the water that drew her attention, and she couldn't wait to get into it. She was exuberant, swimming through the water.

Once out of the water she had to work out that exhilaration by fiercely running through the woods alongside any lake we'd take her to, until she was exhausted, but delirious with joy.

Poodles, even miniature poodles like her, after all, are water dogs by breeding. Our toy poodle, Riley, on the other hand, isn't fond of either being submersed in water or swimming. Although when he was a puppy I waded out holding him, into a lake then dropped him into it and he swam unerringly as swiftly as he possibly could, to the shoreline and out of the water.

Button luxuriated in water. When she was young we bought her one of those small plastic backyard swimming pools meant for a child and she loved it on a hot summer day when we filled it for her. She would even leap occasionally into a stone birthbath we maintained in our backyard.

Lakeside, we would toss pebbles for her to retrieve. She never failed to bring back the very stone we had thrown for her; its odour from the oily grasp of our hands and from her own retrieval likely identifying it for her. She was as addicted to stone-retrieval from a lake, as she was retrieving her favourite tennis ball when it was thrown for her, inside or out of the house.

Bathtime was an occasion she enjoyed, unlike Riley who always shuddered with fear and loathing during the exercise. Except for yesterday, the middle day of a week's heat wave, when I prepared a nice warm bath for him and for the first time ever, he too luxuriated in its cool, cleansing comfort.

We are wallowing in a heat wave. Not quite record-breaking hot temperatures, but there's time yet to break records, since we're anticipating (unhappily) yet another three days of this heat-enervating weather. It may break by Friday, if we're fortunate enough. Seems there's a high-pressure system lurking over our atmosphere and it is anything but anxious to move on. And wishing won't make it so.

So far, the plants in the garden are holding their own, although in the full glare of the sun they're wilting, folding into themselves, doing their best to hide their vulnerability from the full heat blasts. Just as well that much of our gardens are in shade for the most part throughout the day. I always lament that we haven't enough sun exposure to grow plants that really love sun like asters and dahlias and roses and just about most things. I have a tendency to cram plants too close in the garden and they all vie for space, for sun and greater exposure to the soil nutrients. They're like the thoughts in my mind, continually grappling with one another for attention, and then getting confused about who is where and why.

Like my mind, my garden is disorderly but fruitful. I have no real complaints, and I do believe my garden is fairly complacent about its state of constant chaos. Which to me is beautifully expressive of life itself.

As we forked into the crust-tender pie we were having for dessert we both marvelled at how perfect a cherry pie we were eating. The flaky crust teamed up with the perfect filling. Mouth-wateringly delicious. We each had a second helping, it was so good. Except that it wasn't a cherry pie. We were eating a blueberry pie I'd baked earlier in the day.

Earlier even than that I'd done the food shopping at the local supermarket I prefer to shop at. One of the day's specials was blueberry pints, on sale. At that price we could eat them as is on yogurt and sprinkled over breakfast cereal, and also in a pie.

Just incidentally, when I was exiting the supermarket and deposited my weekly Food Bank offerings in a bag containing tinned tuna, dehydrated soup, macaroni and cheese, tins of baked beans, and tins of flaked ham and flaked chicken, I noted something unusual. I placed my bag within the large container inviting community donations for the local food bank, and for the first time instead of a few lone tins, the bottom of the receiving container was covered with bags containing, presumably, offerings just like mine.

As for the blueberry pie; the crust I'd prepared had just the right amount of shortening and a very short squirt of lemon juice along with the ice-water in its preparation to make it perfectly tender and flaky. I'd mixed together in a saucepan sugar and cornstarch and a quarter-cup of cranberry juice, then dumped in a pint and a half of blueberries, cooking and stirring it together until it reached the right, glossy thickness. As it cooled I added a tablespoon of butter and the merest bit of Almond extract.

The pie was put together and baked and cooled for dessert that evening. It just happened to look like, smell like, taste like the perfect cherry pie.

My husband always used to change the oil on his succession of vehicles himself. And I never liked him doing that. Even before I was aware of how dangerous it could be, it always seemed to me to be fraught with the possibility of doing harm to himself. It wasn't until about ten years ago, hearing on the radio a news report of someone I had known well having met his death while changing the oil on his SUV which had rolled forward pinning my old work colleague to the door of his garage while his wife was out for a morning winter jog that I fully understood what might occur.

My husband always assured me that he took every precaution possible to ensure nothing untoward would happen to him, and continued changing the oil himself, in the garage. Until he bought a Mazda which he discovered to his initial dismay was difficult to manoeuvre around to change the oil himself. After which he took it to the dealer's for oil changes and eventually moved his routine oil-change business to our local Canadian Tire garage.

Yesterday afternoon he mentioned to me that he thought there was a slow leak in one of the car tires. He felt he had a puncture and thought he would change the tire. But he discovered soon enough that the special socket to the unique bolt to that wheel was nowhere to be found; it wasn't where he was certain to find it, beside the other tools in the compartment under the trunk. He looked everywhere, wondering why on Earth he would ever have taken it out and placed it elsewhere.

Then he realized he hadn't. The last time, three weeks earlier, when he'd taken it into the Orleans location of Canadian Tire, when the oil change had been done, someone had undertaken to rotate the wheels, although he hadn't asked for that to be done. He hurriedly drove over to the garage and explained the situation to the manager; it seemed most reasonable to conclude that whoever had changed over the wheels had simply forgotten to replace the socket and my husband asked if the socket had been found and set aside. But it hadn't.

The people there know my husband well. We've been customers of the store in all of its previous locations, including the current one. That's about 40 years, although of course, client service personnel come and go. My husband always has good relations with service people because he respects what they do. The service manager was contacted and he was apprised of the situation. He assured my husband that though it was close to closing time, this would be given a high priority and looked after right away.

The tire was changed, and out of it was extracted a roofing nail; presumably picked up a short while ago on our neighbourhood street where a neighbour was having his roof replaced. Because the socket couldn't be found, a new system of bolt-and-socket was put in place. When my husband attempted to pay for the work done, he was waved off; it was complementary.

That's what is called responsibility, and outstanding service. My husband has gone off to buy one of those very large cakes sold at his favourite supermarket (not mine), to present it as a gift of appreciation to the people working in the garage. Reminds me of his having brought over two large such cakes when I was discharged from the Heart Institute three years ago after almost a week of intense scrutiny and care by the medical staff there.

My husband surprised me on Thursday, pointing out to me a recipe that caught his eye when he was leafing through the pages of a small local newspaper, one of those 'freebies' that can be picked up just about anywhere. It was a review of a recently published cookbook titled Mouthwatering Vegan, by Miriam Sorrell.

We're anything but vegan, though my sister and her family all are. We personally think the diet is far too limiting. We're omnivores and that's the way it is. Oddly enough we're the odd-family-out, in that regard as far as our extended family is concerned. Our daughter and granddaughter are vegetarian for the most part, but they will admit fish to their diet. Our younger son is the same. My brother is strictly vegetarian and so is his daughter, although not his son or his wife.

In any event, this recipe caught my husband's discerning eye and he thought it might be worth trying. Which surprised me, since though I cook for both of us I know he isn't all that fond of overly spicy foods, and certainly not of curries. When our visiting son makes curries, my husband eats them hesitantly and conspicuously without gusto, calling them "camping food" recipes in memory of our many extended canoe-camping experiences when my husband was the chief cook and many of the recipes he used appealed enormously to us but never to him.



This was called "Potato curry in a hurry"; actually pancakes. The ingredients list called for 3 tbsp.frozen peas, 2 tbsp.frozen corn to be cooked slightly, then set aside. I omitted the corn and 'cooked' the peas in the microwave. Four medium sized potatoes to be cooked and mashed, 1 tbsp.vegan margarine (I used butter) added, along with 1/4-cup non-diary milk (omitted that, too). Then came 1-1/2 tsp. curry powder, salt to taste.

You were to grate a medium carrot, a half-onion, 2 garlic cloves and chop four mushrooms (I omitted the mushrooms), then mix that into the potatoes along with the peas and corn. Adding 2 tsp. nutritional yeast (I omitted the yeast), and fresh rosemary (I used dried), along with 1-1/2 tbsp. unbleached all-purpose flour. Because the mixture seemed thick enough to form into robust patties (five large patties), I didn't bother with the flour, either.

I pre-prepared the ingredients, formed the patties, left them covered with saran wrap in a refrigerated dish for several hours, and at dinnertime served a fresh green salad, then crisp-fried the patties in enough olive oil to keep them from drying out. They were delicious. But next time around -- and there will be a next time around, because we both enjoyed them enormously -- I'll try mixing in an egg and several tablespoons of whole-wheat flour before forming the mixture into patties.

Some years ago I came across what I felt to be a hugely meaningful nutritional recommendation; that to get the most out of garlic's powerful usefulness to human biology, garlic, once chopped, should be left to rest for ten minutes before undergoing the cooking process to ensure that its nutrient-rich properties would remain intact. And now again, there it is. I'd practised what I had read, but found that when I mentioned it to others concerned with nutritional awareness they just shrugged it off.

Now that Jo Robinson, who was intrigued enough to do some research to support her own theories of availability of vitamins, minerals, fibre and anti-oxidants in various fruits and vegetables currently on the market as opposed to those which our ancestors were accustomed to devouring, and published her book Eating on the Wild Side, perhaps a lot more people will become aware of how to select and sustain valuable nourishment from whole foods we often take for granted.

People are fascinated by the topic of phyto-chemical absorption and availability. Reading this book will certainly help them make informed choices.  "I think it's bordering on criminal that all this knowledge about phyto-nutrients has simply been bounced around in academia. All of this information comes from original sources -- studies that are so dense, they are of little value to consumers, but they contain nuggets of information that are absolutely astounding", she said in an interview.

She took it upon herself to read those studies, and to synthesize the information they contain into reader-friendly advice, available to people who are interested in nutrition and human health. More power to her. Here's hoping she is rewarded with a wide reading audience appreciative of the opportunity to build on their current knowledge about food-health.

"I'm growing a kind of wild apple now, for example, that has 400 times more antioxidants than the Ginger Gold apples you can buy in the grocery store .... Ever since we invented agriculture 10,000 years ago we have been selecting fruits and vegetables that are high in starch and sugar and low in vitamins, minerals, fibre and antioxidants. We have unwittingly bred out these compounds that now appear to be absolutely essential for optimum health."

But through her concentrated effort and studies she has discovered fruit and vegetable varieties found on supermarket shelves and at farmers' markets that fairly closely approximate nutritional content of their wild ancestors. She also writes of ways to prepare foods for maximum nutritional benefits.