From a distance, the meadow seems as moist as ever. But it is easy to find evidence of drought.  A rim of straw colored grass rings some of the meadow ponds, as if it were already autumn.  The normally sweet blueberries taste bitter. Worse, at least one lily pad ponds now has a wide beach of mud. Last summer a foot of water covered the stuff.

        Aki is too short sighted to care about the shrinking ponds or drying muskeg meadows. For a day I would like to sense the world as the little dog does. She can find as much depth in a urine stained blade of grass as I can in a Tolstoy novel. The poodle-mix’s library is scatter along her trails.