Live in a place long enough, you don’t need a calendar to know the time of year if you just pay attention to the world around you. Winter in Homer seems timeless, one blur of snow and white, but summer. Ah, summer. You can peg summer by the week with each new blossom of flowers.

Chocolate lilies flower by mid- or late June. Lupines explode in all their glory the first week of July. This week? Call it Pushki Week, when the cow parsnips poke white sprays of flowers above chest-high blue joint grass. We’re coming into fireweed season, too, when the first buds of late summer start appearing.

Songbirds serenade us in spring. In summer, the birds dance. Fledglings hide in roadside brush, stretching their wings, and explode in quick acrobatics as you drive through tunnels of high grass and thick alder. Swallows gorge on mosquitoes, great clouds swooping over ponds. One day you’ll see thousands, and the next day, they’ll be gone.

Which is the pattern of the season. Each week we’re surprised by some new bird, some new flower, only to have it vanish the next. You have to grab every new moment in summer, and savor each blessing before it leaves. Our days seem so long we think summer will last forever. Of course it doesn’t — and it shouldn’t. If summer lasted forever, we’d soon get bored.

So cherish each new blossom, each new bird, each new day. While you’re doing that, check out some of these Best Bets:

BEST TOUCH OF GRACE BET: It can be a long slog, but once you get up to the top of Grace Ridge, you’re rewarded by amazing views of Kachemak and Tutka bays. Community Schools offers another one of its discounted hikes at 9 a.m. Friday. Pick up is at 4 p.m. Call 235-2947 to register.

BEST WHAT IS WATER? BET: It runs through our veins, saturates our skin and surrounds us, but what really is water? Find out from 6-8 p.m. Friday, when the Watershed Wynners kids do demonstrations about water at the Carl Wynn Nature Center on East Skyline Drive. Free and for all ages, with a pie and ice cream social to follow.

BEST FARM FRESH BET: The crops are coming in, and if you get there early, you get the pick of Homer’s finest produce from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. at the Saturday Farmers’ Market on Ocean Drive. Vendors sell crafts, and now and then one of Homer’s local musicians might play a tune or two.

BEST GET OUT ALIVE BET: “Teen Wilderness Survival” sounds like a crash course for parents, but it’s really about teenagers finding their way in the world — with map and compass. Leave the batteries at Home, unplug the iPod buds and navigate nature the old-fashioned way. The course runs 1-4 p.m. Saturday at the Wynn Nature Center; $10 fee. Call 235-5266.

BEST OLD TIME MUSIC BET: It seems like every Southern musician from Elvis to Ray Charles got started in Gospel music. If you have a hankering for that sweet music of the Lord, check out the Liberty Quartet at 7 p.m. Saturday when they sing at the Church of the Nazarene. Free admission, but a love offering will be taken. Refreshments follow, and childcare is provided.

BEST ENDLESS PUNS BET: Yes, “Anything is Pawsible” when you start talking about critters. That’s the title of original animal folktales by storyteller Joy Steiner, running 10-11 a.m. Monday at the Alaska Islands and Ocean Visitor Center.

BEST ALL POLITICS IS LOCAL BET: In a time of international crisis, where nations try to solve problems with missiles, small towns do it the hard way: they roll up their sleeves and get to work. If you’re visiting and what to see democracy in action, Homer style, drop by the Homer City Council meeting at 7 p.m. Monday night.