One fall day in Interior Alaska, a lion stalked a ground squirrel that stood at attention on a hillside. The squirrel noticed bending blades of grass, squeaked an alarm call, and then dived into its hole. It curled up in a grassy nest. A few hours later, for reasons unknown, its heart stopped.

I hate to resolve to the shallowness of writing about the weather. By now everyone must have noticed that we are having an unusually warm, extremely dry summer. But I may be wrong: Just the other day, as I left a store the cashier told me to “enjoy the nice weather.” There is nothing nice ab…

There’s a saying that we can live four weeks without food, four days without water, and four minutes without air. Today I’d like to talk about water, or the lack of it, and how it affects plants.