Having perfected my wild blueberry pie recipe I’m savoring the fruits of my labor, along with a serving of humble pie on the cyber trail.

I’d convinced myself that if I used hike time to complete a bunch of work-related tasks, I’d have a worry free Saturday to hike all day. A fine plan until I pushed a button that disappeared an important section of my website. No clients were harmed, but I was in tears.

Why bother? I’m invisible in the vastness of cyberspace anyway, right? Do real environmentalists hang out in cyberspace anyway? What difference does my knowledge make to anyone?

To the rescue my cyber-shirpa and Internet Marketing Specialist.

If my Mom were alive, I’ll bet she would be spending time on Yahoo Answers She was a voracious reader with a perpetually curious mind. She referred to her eclectic knowledge base as her “store of useless information.”

I’ve inherited her love of reading and her curiosity.

I have a favorite blueberry-picking spot, which in a good year yields over 50 pounds of the sweetest fruit I have ever eaten. Last year’s drought meant I had enough to eat in season, but none to freeze. (More about freezing berries at the end of this article.)

I have finally perfected the wild blueberry pie filling so that it is the perfect texture.

Fisher is a rarely seen weasel family member. Finding these tracks in snow was a surprise. I confirmed what I saw by checking my most reliable source:

Tracking and the Art of Seeing: How to Read Animal Tracks and Sign by Paul Rezendes

From my journal:

A single set of footprints meander along downed logs, weaving in and out of brush, through holes dug in snow, reappearing up a tree trunk and through branches into a hollow tree. Some tracks show it traveled head-first down the tree. Those prints were not clear enough for a good photo.

Mnemonics are phrases used to help us remember something important.

Here are a few nature-related mnemonics:

OCEAN

Only Cats’ Eyes Are Narrow

GEOGRAPHY

George Eastman’s Old Grandmother Rode A Pony Home Yesterday

Most of the time when I see a scarecrow, it’s either in a backyard garden, or it’s a Halloween lawn decoration.

Here’s something else you can do with that scarecrow. It works really well if you have and old shirt, trousers, hat and gloves that look like what the scarecrow is wearing:

If the scarecrow’s hat has a rim, sprinkle bird seed there, too.

Take a familiar word, rearrange the letters to make another familiar word, and you’ve created an anagram.

Here are a few examples:

canoe – ocean
early – layer or relay
lake – leak
satin – stain

A Palindrome is a word or phrase that reads the same backwards and forwards.

Word examples: Adam, Bob, noon, radar, racecar

Nature observation using items found around the house are my favorite activities.

Birds and animals show a remarkable ability to adapt to non-wild food sources.

Materials:

• One 8X11-inch piece of stiff cardboard
• Glue
• Two small plastic margarine or butter containers
• Popcorn
• A window you can open

I wrote a poem entitled Natural Snack years before TV reality shows became popular.

I encourage you to read the poem and then try this recipe, remembering that most of us think nothing of eating lobster, which also has an exoskeleton.