Two large Japanese maples stand just inside the southern point of my property, providing three-season privacy from oncoming traffic headed north to the Colrain/Green River roads fork. These ornamental trees bud in pastel red and grow brilliant scarlet leaves that fade to a soft, olive-green before bursting into their brightest fall cardinal-red. They then shed their leaves and expose my white home like a beacon centered in the view from down the road. Showy twin harbingers that
differ slightly in color, the trees are today hinting their vibrant fall glory. Soon they’ll scream of winter’s chilly approach, a loud foreboding before all is white and gray and barren, the forest floor open to even the dimmest moonlight.

My Far Eastern trees are not the only signs of fall on the landscape these days. Flowered rose of Sharon bushes are displaying random yellow leaves. Ripe apples are dropping to the turf with their subtle thud. Male staghorn sumacs are sporting their pre-frost reds. The saucer-like Queen Anne’s lace have gone to seed — used for centuries as contraception — fists clenched and drooping as distant baying of flocked geese penetrates low, gray morning skies. Soon the report of guns from September goose and bear hunters will pierce silent mornings from afar, signaling the start of another type of fall harvest as the wheel harrow squeals through spent summer croplands.

Where has the summer gone? The same place it always goes. Nothing new.

Soon harsh winter winds will freeze our frosty breath to facial and nasal hairs. I can’t say I dread it. For what? I am a four-season New Englander; love the ebbs and flows, the hots and colds produced on our northern stage. I call it home; could have fled long ago; didn’t; won’t. It’s what I know and love.

Ooops, gotta go. Blue Sky’s dumping my first load of cordwood out back. One more sign that summer’s on its last leg.

Dog daze and cabin fever are afflictions on opposite sides of the calendar that infect a man like me. So here I sit suffering from the former, sweating profusely, thirsty, wellspring of hunting and fishing news dried up, little to write about before the first shots of autumn are fired. Nonetheless, I can usually dig something up to quench my thirst, not always connected to the sporting world, and not always appreciated by nuts-and-bolts sportsmen. But, to take a phrase from my late Nova Scotian grandmother — hardy Acadian French to the core: “C’est la vie.”

Yeah, I know I could be chasing down some useless bass-tournament standings, publishing doe-permit numbers everyone already knows, assessing turkey broods and deer herds in the fields around me, maybe even taking shots at the anti-hunting, anti-gun crowd loathed by so many reactionary sportsmen. But I’ll leave that to others who are content serving maybe 15 percent of the newspaper-reading public. How about the other 85 percent? Do they want to read about fishing derbies and the world according to the NRA? Doubtful indeed, especially here in the upper Happy Valley, god bless it. Here, folks seem more interested in re-establishing a Wolfe bounty and rejecting big-box development. But let us not digress … back to the subject at hand.

Last year at this time, you may recall, I was criticizing Tea Party thugs for carrying weapons to presidential appearances, then shared personal recollections from Woodstock ’69 and the Summer of Love. The e-mails came streaming in, a flood of them, about 10 to 1 in favor of eclectic subject matter, preferring writing to straight reporting. That is not to say there weren’t irate comments from the occupants of secluded tree stands high above hilltown oaks and apples. Feedback from the folks viewing the world from that lofty perspective went more like this: “What the —- are you doing glorifying hippies and criticizing gun owners in a hunting and fishing column? It’s wrong. Inappropriate.”

Oh well, if they say it, it must be so. Can’t satisfy everyone; learned that many years ago; reminiscent of advice from the journalistic mentor I most respected, one who left the newspaper business in his 40s to teach college and cast Molotov cocktails at cream-of-wheat AP news-writing style. “If all you make in this business is friends, then you’re not doing your job,” he bellowed after someone had “issues” with something I had written. Since then, I have always taken my lumps, dusted off and moved on, undeterred, aware that my unconventional ways are bound to stir ire among ardent conformists, conservatives and tiresome bores. Isn’t “conventional wisdom” often based on nothing resembling wisdom at all; more like ignorance, dreaded rule by the rabble that our founders feared most after watching in horror what unfolded before their very eyes in blood-gushing, 18th-century France. That was justice? Really? Thank heaven we’re all entitled to our opinions here in this cradle of liberty, valley of the happy.

Something else my long-lost mentor impressed upon me during conversation about education, credentials and what he looked for in an aspiring journalist: He said he always quickly weeded out the “high-achieving” students who tunnel-visioned their way to newsrooms. “I valued life experience over formal education,” he said. “Give me the dropout who went to war, suffered, returned home, drifted, found himself and took a job at a newspaper. That man knew what life was about, had lived it, seen things no sheltered straight-A student would ever see. He’d make a good reporter.”

I listened, took heed, will never see it any other way, regardless of how many honor rolls and Dean’s Lists the teacher’s pets of the world can cite among their academic accomplishments; which brings me to tales of the rare Frank L. Boyden-hired Deerfield Academy teachers who fit my mentor’s unconventional mold and still earn lavish praise. These men were adored by students at the elite New England prep school, but their likes will never again be hired there; not for a day, far too risky. Sadly, a new die has been cast, the student forever cheated, unable to meet unique, interesting characters with a wealth of knowledge to share, tidbits gleaned from seedy corridors off the main drag, then perhaps a good taste of literature. Very sad. A missing link. But, again, let us not digress … back to the great outdoors.

Two weeks ago, I was driving home on a still, sultry afternoon, traveling through a tunnel between two towering, fragrant cornfields. The strong, familiar aroma got me thinking that maybe bear season will be too late this year to limit significant cornfield damage. The fresh, sweet smell piercing my nostrils told me from instinct that the cow corn was ripe almost a month early; seemed to me a phenomenon more associated with late August/early September. The annual bear season opens on the Tuesday after Labor Day, too late this year, far too late. I almost addressed the subject when I first noticed it, but instead went off on Walmart, following an impromptu breakfast conversation with a veritable expert. Then, last week, I again considered the early-corn-and-bear-foraging subject before going off on a genealogical ramble through the wilds of Hawley; just couldn’t resist. So now, here I sit, revisiting the corn issue, ears still ripe and pungent. The bears must have gotten a whiff by now, found their way.

So, what to do?

Well, I suppose I could have called the state Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs to get clearance and then speak to a MassWildlife expert, get his or her opinion about the impact early-corn maturation will have on bear season and crop damage. But why? What is there to gain? Do these people answering the phone in their air-conditioned Westborough offices know more than me, a man who has observed and written with attribution about this annual phenomenon for three solid decades here? Do I really need some canned response couched in uncertainty to protect a reputation? I think not. So I’ll just throw it out there and await the response from my agrarian neighbors, who will surely confirm my suspicion that bears are visiting cornfields early. Why? Quite simple: Bears gravitate to cornfields when ripe, and they ripened early this year. Duh! And to think I didn’t even need a gilt-framed master’s or doctorate to figure that out. Common sense was sufficient.

So, off I go, having once again dredged up something to fill this weekly space when the well was dry. I hope I haven’t offended anyone, especially my unnamed mentor who’s now old, seemed old when I met him. He warned us nearly 40 years ago — way before the Internet and iPhones and blogs and 24/7 cable news stations — that the future was bleak for newspapers. He thought editors and publishers should take a serious look at “New Journalism” — Rolling-Stone style, literary reportage he believed readers preferred — and toss aside their old, tired news style. That was in the early 1970s. The man was a visionary. He rejected the formulaic “Old News” model then. Readers are now following his lead.

Like the black bears foraging local cornfields these days, modern readers hunt for news that’s fresh and fragrant, with a dash of personality. It makes sense. Only the senile are drawn to swill-bucket stench when the sweetness of fruits, nuts, berries and maize fill the balmy air.

Sporting the white, cotton, “Old Hawley Common” T-shirt with red letters that I bought Sunday at the common’s unveiling—hint of bear scent wafting through cool, clear mountain air—inspired inquiries from some folks I bumped into this week in my travels.

“Oh, you went to that?” was a question by some who had seen the event publicized; then, “What, pray tell, is your interest in Hawley?” that seldom-visited hilltown nestled into Franklin County’s southwestern corner, population 337. Well, as is often true in my case, it all comes down to history, place and blood, often intertwined in a geographical setting where one’s roots run deep.

Although I am the direct descendant of no original Hawley settler I know of, a Sanderson great-grandfather of mine was among the original proprietors; not only that, but peripheral genealogical lines run through that landscape like its shaded brooks and streams. Throw in a direct link to the historic building I call home, and my interest heightens. So, I guess you could say that my fascination with Hawley is all about personal connections.

Hawley, it seems, was one of many “frontier” destinations for those defeated rabble-rousers who publicly supported Capt. Daniel Shays of Shays’ Rebellion fame (1786-87). After Shays fled Massachusetts in February 1787, he and his soldiers dispersed to the hinterlands, many touching down in Vermont and New York State, some settling much closer, in places like Hawley, which seemed to hold preferred status for Whately/Conway rebels, possibly because they knew or were related to speculative landowners who did not intend to live there.

Adonijah Taylor and son John were two such men, the elder an early Deerfield miller who established the first Roaring Brook grist and sawmills on a rise overlooking the Mill River section of Deerfield. Today, that site is located in Whately, below the lower Whately Glen dam. Fifth great-grandfather Deacon Thomas Sanderson, the aforementioned Hawley landowner, purchased the home and mill sites from the Taylors in 1803, and they were likely longtime friends. Taylor’s wife, Rachel Sawtelle, and my Sanderson branch grew up in Groton, arrived here at about the same time and were connected by marriage to the Parker family of that town. That Middlesex County Parker family produced Lt. Isaac Parker, second in command at Fort No. 4 in Charlestown, N.H., New England’s northernmost French and Indian War outpost and the probable reason why the Parkers, then my Sandersons chose Deerfield and the Canterbury section of Hatfield (now River Road, Whately) for homes sites. Which brings us to another Hawley connection.

Abraham Parker (1726-1757), son of Lt. Isaac, was probably introduced to the peaceful intervale below Sugarloaf while patrolling on military detail out of Fort No. 4. What was there not to love about that idyllic, fertile plain? By 1748, Parker had built a dwelling there, and four years later, brother-in-law Joseph Sanderson, progenitor of my Franklin County line, was squatting next door. Tragedy struck the Parker family five years later when, on Saturday, March 12, 1757, Parker drowned crossing the Connecticut River ice on his way to or from Sunderland (tavern hopping perhaps?), leaving behind five children, one unborn. I have never found Parker’s grave, but it is probably in Sunderland if his body was recovered, because that’s where he attended church.

Parker’s first son and second child, Abraham Jr. (1752-1837), was one of Hawley’s first settlers; his cellar hole is the outermost of nine identified sites along the Hawley-Common route unveiled Sunday. I met three or four Parker descendants, distant cousins of mine, at Sunday’s dedication. Their family had lived in the original Parker homestead for nearly 120 years, until 1891, when the dwelling and outbuildings were abandoned, soon to be cratered memories. And yes, all that remains today are dark, damp, stone-clad holes. I feel a certain attachment to those Parker ruins because more than likely Abraham Jr., fatherless before his fifth birthday, viewed Uncle Joseph Sanderson (my sixth ggf) as a surrogate father, spending many a day roaming the woods and fields and swamps below Sugarloaf with Joseph’s eight sons, some older, others younger than him. Uncle Joseph, his gravestone the oldest in East Whately Cemetery, died in 1772. Four years later, when Parker Jr. was 24, he set out for Hawley, where his cousins — brothers Nathaniel, Abel and David Parker — were also staking claims, plus, first-cousin and boyhood neighbor Thomas Sanderson, six years older, owned a couple parcels there.

Ah-ha, all about family ties, it is.

Now, as for the link between my Greenfield home and Hawley, well, that was a more recent discovery. The journey began following a brief telephone conversation with Colrain artist Hale Johnson, whose mother, Louise Hale Johnson, published “The History of the Town of Hawley” in 1953, the year I was born. When Mr. Johnson asked about the history of my tavern, I told him the last major “improvements” were made by Ebenezer Thayer, who sold the Charlemont Inn before buying my place in 1836. When I informed him that Thayer had lived in Hawley, it piqued his interest, said he knew all the Hawley cemeteries after visiting them as a boy with his mother. Then, after later finding Louise Hale Johnson’s book in Google Books and reading her Thayer genealogy, I discovered what I believed to be an error. Her profile of Thayer as a good businessman who owned a hotel in Charlemont before purchasing “the expensive Arms Farm in Greenfield Meadows in 1835” differed from what I knew. Because I had done the deed research to document Thayer’s purchase of my Upper Meadows tavern in 1836, I thought Ms. Johnson was mistaken. A trip to the Registry of Deeds proved me wrong.

Thayer did indeed purchase what was known as the Ebenezer Arms Farm in 1835, a little more than a year before buying my place. Then, three years later, in 1839, he purchased the Moses Arms Farm, contiguous with the first Arms farm he had purchased four years earlier. The cost of the three Meadows properties that consumed nearly 1,000 acres was the enormous sum of $30,000, which would compute to millions today. All three homesteads are extant, with the two Arms farms situated in the Lower Meadows. The so-called Ebenezer Arms place stands on Thayer Road, overlooking the long Greenfield Community College driveway and, across it, the so-called Moses Arms Farm, later Myers Farm, today Four Rivers Charter School. My property is named Old Tavern Farm; Thayer bought it from Samuel Hinsdale III and soon added a porch and upstairs ballroom for tavern-keeping son Hollister Baker Thayer, whose name came straight from Hawley; it was there after 1810 that his uncle, Hollister Baker, built a stately, brick, Federal mansion-house that still stands proudly in Pudding Meadow and was recently sold to an “outsider” for a tidy fee.

So, there you have it: a few of the subjects that lured me to the Hawley woods on Sunday and will surely draw me back. A new discovery in the Doane Cemetery caught my interest during a brief stop with a friend and neighbor on the way home. Isolated under a hardwood shade tree just inside the eastern stonewall border of the burial ground stood the lonely, flagged gravestone of Capt. Oliver Shattuck, who died in 1797, age 46. His Shattuck family has an interesting history, one that also weaves through Groton and Fort No. 4 to our slice of paradise known as the upper Pioneer Valley. I think I’ll see what I can find about the man. Who knows? He may even have been a displaced Shaysite, rarely easy to document these days. But even if it can’t be proven, you can usually make connections, ones that provide a pretty good idea of where he stood on the conflict.

Mystery fuels discovery, uncertainty revs the motor, spins the wheels, mine already awhirl and shrill. Before a man can truly understand the little world around him, he must first discover who he is. It’s complex. I’m getting there.

Dabs of fall color are already popping up along the roadside, a jostling reminder that the cold months will soon be coming to a theater near you.

Although the soft marsh maples have not yet started to sport their fall hues, the wetland purples and yellows are out, the red sumac fruit appeared weeks ago, the apples at the foot or my driveway are red, and acorns and other nuts are dropping while soft, ghostly hydrangea blossoms start to show. I don’t keep a journal of such things, but it seems to me that all of the above are way ahead of schedule, and so is the Rose of Sharon, which, in my memory, is also more typically a mid-August bloomer. And why wouldn’t these natural phenomena appear early after an early spring that was two and three weeks ahead? Before you know it, the hum of corn harvesters will be heard in the distance, truckfuls of silage will be roaring past my door, and the woodshed will be bloated to feed my soapstone stove.

I can’t say I find harbingers of fall depressing. I like cool weather, the upland romps for bird and beast, tremors from snow sliding to the ground off the slate roof; and I love dry wood heat, the product of my daily toil. I even enjoy filling the woodshed, once I’m finished and peering in to admire the massive indoor mound that’ll be mostly gone by May. I cannot honestly say I look forward to the sound of Blue Sky’s dump truck backing up to the sliding woodshed door, not to mention the pile of work he leaves behind; and I don’t enjoy writing him checks, either. Can you blame me? When I moved to Greenfield in 1997, firewood cost $80 a cord. Now it’s $225 or more. Can’t say my pay raises have kept pace with that spike, which doesn’t even address the increased cost of heating oil, groceries and just about every
other essential. But I get through it, as do many other New Englanders facing identical issues.

For the time being, I guess I’ll just enjoy the rest of summer, get my bird-hunting gear in order and wait for the leaves to fall, another annual phenomenon that brings chores I do not cherish. Snow-shoveling will follow, the worst of it deposited from the roof to the driveway in front of the carriage sheds, compacted, heavy and worthy of creative procrastination.

Why complain? We all endure similar seasonal hardships, then repeat them over and over again. But have you ever considered what life without four distinct seasons would be like?

I have. Not for me.

Another Sunken-Meadow trek, a new sweet aroma to spin my wheels. Fine start to column day.

A warm, light rain fell through gray, dense air, so heavy you needed a sharp machete to bust through it. I was exercising the dogs, peds saturated after a few easy steps through ankle-high grass, alluring scent lifting my spirit. It was the same sweetness that had tickled my nostrils the previous afternoon, similarly breathless and damp, this one grayer and wetter, me on a sodden mission.

Virgin-white Queen Anne’s Lace filled the meadow like stilted teacup saucers towering over the infant Christmas trees, sumac fruit coloring the periphery here and there like bright red dabs of paint on canvas. I have many times passed Queen Anne’s Lace in my travels but have never inspected it, buried my nose in the flower, extracted its carrot root. Today would be different. After Googling it, I wanted to know more. I had sensed a new scent mixed with the fragrant clover, itself sweet, and figured it must have been the blooming wildflower; but I wanted to make sure, imprint it in my memory for future reference; every day a nature’s classroom.

With the turf softened by drenching overnight rains, the time was right. I pulled up the first plant I passed, smelled its flower, studied its narrow, turnip-colored root. So I now know the sweet scent of Queen Anne’s Lace, will always recognize it like the multiflora rose that captivated me a month or so back on that same sunken, riverside stage. The subtle scent is quite invigorating, akin to the finest French perfume, and quite complementary to the clovers, like they were made for each other. Who knows? Maybe they were.

Next year I’ll likely taste the spring carrot, young and tender. Wild carrots. Yum. My cup of tea.

I enjoyed an idyllic, restful weekend, reading studiously under bright sunny skies in the comforts of home, pleasing natural stimuli, sights and sounds, everywhere. Does it get any better?

My wife was out of town visiting grandsons Jordan and Arie, providing me with plenty of time to read a fascinating book about birds and their anthropomorphic ways. I purchased it noontime Friday at World Eye, was delighted to find a copy of the new release in stock, and delved right in upon returning home, not even waiting for my wife’s departure to the People’s Republic of Vermont, that great little state with independent Yankee DNA flowing back to Ethan Allen and friends. The book immediately seized me. I couldn’t put it down; was so committed, in fact, that I awoke at first light Saturday and Sunday mornings, dressing warmly, hat and all, windows wide open, before laying back on a leather couch to read under artificial light, serenaded throughout by sweet, incessant cardinal melodies, front and back, stereophonic, uplifting and, yes, even invigorating. What a way to start the day.

During intermittent breaks, I spotted a bright red male bird perched in the burning bush and sugar maple out front, later in the forsythia and large fir tree out back, so I knew some of the joyous tunes were his. Or were there two or three or more? I suspect a nesting female or two were also singing their happiest spring tunes, but I never saw one. Still, the songs were better than anything that could have been delivered by my clear Pres Speakers, innovative surround-sound units created totally by the hands and mind of old friend Mark Pieraccini, a man who loves baseball like no other. Well, I used to love it, too, maybe as much as he, perhaps even more. But now, consumed by other stuff, baseball’s behind me. I view it as kids’ stuff, great while it lasted, maybe even better than great; for had I been a songbird back then, I would have whistled rapturous tunes. No doubt about it.

Isn’t it strange how this new book, one I would recommend to anyone and am here discussing – “The Nesting Season: Cuckoos, Cuckolds, and the Invention of Monogamy,” by Vermont naturalist Bernd Heinrich – came to my attention? It all started with e-mail correspondence between me and a faraway, foreign cyber pal, during philosophical discussion about Christianity, the three forms of Greek love (eros, agape and philia), and monogamy. At one point in this enticing correspondence freshet, I questioned the popular myth we’ve all heard about birds mating for life, said it made no sense that nature would construct so rigid a rule when the goal of mating and courtship is to maintain and strengthen species. I wrote that I had been told for years not to hunt wood ducks because they mated for life, would never find another once their “first love” was gone. I told my faraway friend I had never believed it, viewed it as pure nonsense, even from my own mother’s mouth, because it violated the basic tenets of nature - my personal god, the only one that can drop me to my knees. I viewed the doubtful bird-monogamy concept as propaganda that fit snugly and conveniently into the same Christian Doctrine I rejected as a gullible peach-fuzzed lad. They tried to snare me back then and failed. I believe I’m a better man for it. Certainly not a true believer. Far from it.

But let us not digress. After stating my case in writing, off the cuff, about ornithological matters I knew little about, I was feeling a little insecure, like maybe I was talking through my, well, you know what. After all, there I was, basically an autodidact, certainly no academic, communicating with a world-renown doctor of science who probably knew more about the lifetime-mating theory than I. Maybe some birds do mate for life, I thought. Possibly she knew it to be so, would view me as a fool for suggesting otherwise. So I went to Google and started hunting information with different keywords – combos like “birds” “lifetime mates” or “birds” “monogamy.” Sure enough, up popped Heinrich’s latest book, fresh off the Harvard Press. I had to read it, and did.

My weekend reading chores began each morning in the west parlor before the sun peeked over the eastern tree line. Then, before 9, I’d move to a comfy backyard table in the alcove formed between barn and woodshed. There, catching hot rays through a clear blue sky, I was serenaded by some of the birds I was reading about, mostly cardinals. It was surreal, distant  rattle of the stream, maybe 100 feet away, adding soft percussion, like brushes petting a snare drum. At times, the cardinals’ song would distract me, pull me away from Heinrich’s prose. My eyes would stay focused, not my mind, which would go briefly elsewhere, thinking about the cardinals and what all the singing meant, maybe wandering further off to more complex matters. But I always found my way back to the book and regained focus, my goal maximum comprehension, not always easy with your mind awhirl.

Fact is, despite reading a detailed account of bird-nesting behavior, I never really understood why those cardinals were so happy and vocal. It had to have something to do with nesting and mating, I thought, but why exactly they were so vociferous was above my pay grade. Then, Monday afternoon, the singing abruptly stopped after my daily feeding trip to the kennel and pooch Lily. I had heard their blissful songs throughout the day while reading the new Rolling Stone, and had several times through the back windows seen a brilliant male perched brightly on a dead fir limb 10 or 12 feet off the ground. All had been quiet when I walked through strong, blustery winds to the cookshed, where I opened the 30-gallon plastic tub, took a scoopful of Iams and dumped it into a Griswold No. 8 skillet for Lily. After greeting her, tail wagging, at the kennel door and placing the skillet at the back right corner, I returned toward the woodshed and spotted a faraway clump of something that had not been on the ground below the fir tree during the outbound trip. As I approached the tall tree towering over the barn roof, I could see it was a bird’s nest. I picked it up and found underneath the remains of three or four broken blue eggs, right below the perch used many times by the male cardinal. A coincidence? Who knows? Not likely, though, in my mind.

Being no ornithologist, I could not say for sure that the fallen nest belonged to cardinals. Northern cardinal eggs I Googled were cream colored with brown speckles, not solid blue, and cardinal nests were not constructed like the one I found. But I knew the singing had stopped after the nest fell. So my guess at the time was that it was those cardinals’ nest, and that the singing would resume when another was built, a new clutch laid. Call it deductive reasoning, which, at the time, was all I had. Kind of like my uninformed opinion that birds do not mate for life. That suspicion was confirmed by Heinrich, a veritable expert. He says birds are monogamous by necessity, not choice; and that even after they’ve secured a partner for mating season, cuckoldry is not uncommon. Imagine that! I shudder at the thought, then break into a wry grin. For the umpteenth time, an interesting discovery has tickled my armpit. What discovery? Well, the knowledge that sometimes you don’t need a gilt-framed diploma to figure things out. Common sense often suffices, is more than enough. That fallen nest may have been a robin’s, or maybe even a robin’s nest under consideration or already populated by cardinals. Possible, I guess, but would need more research for a definitive answer. What I know for sure, though, is that the cardinal singing went silent after that nest tumbled to the turf. Then all was quiet for more than 24 hours, not a peep anywhere within earshot. Everything changed following Tuesday’s damaging, late-afternoon rainstorm when, sometime after 5, the singing resumed like it had never stopped. By Wednesday morning, sweet cardinal tunes could be heard all around me; from my yard, front and back, my neighbors’ yards, across the brook – a cheerful symphony in dynamic stereo. I looked out and caught two frisky scarlet males involved in a chase from tree to tree, bush to bush, through the front yard, one right on the other’s tail, both low to the ground, the one in back scolding the pursued with a staccato chipping sound. Maybe the chaser had been cuckolded, heaven forbid. Nature’s way, it seems.

I again pondered why the singing had resumed and what had stopped it for more than a day? It must have had something to do with that fallen nest, or perhaps another, unseen, that had tumbled down in the same tree-swaying wind.

Then again, when you think of it, does it really matter? Isn’t it sometimes better not to know? Nature’s mysteries are entertaining, intriguing and capable of wildly spinning your wheels to a shrill scream. Usually, that’s  good enough for me.

It’s that time of year when, sadly, I must report, not write, despite what’s going on around me. Given a choice, I always prefer writing to reporting. There’s a big difference. One not everyone understands.

The time is right for writing. Perfect, in fact. The early spring has produced a rare overlap of beautiful colors from the magnolia, forsythia, Japanese maples, apple, quince, bleeding hearts and Quanson cherries simultaneously adorning my yard in their full splendor. The rhubarb and asparagus are ready for their first cuts, and even the lilacs beneath the magnolia are sporting tiny purple blossoms while many full magnolia flowers still ride the cold, blustery wind on their flimsy shoots; very unusual, first time in 13 years on my property that the lilacs have shown color before the magnolia tree turned green, its scattered pink tulip petals rotting on the turf below. So here I sit, space-heater purring behind me, spot-heating, refusing to start the wood stove or tip up the thermostat for this cold snap that’ll soon turn warm.

Speaking of pink, how about that Full Pink Moon in the sky, the one I promised weeks ago was due for opening week of turkey season; weather permitting, would likely stimulate aggressive daybreak gobbling from boss toms? When I left work Tuesday night, I could feel that bright moon behind dense stormy clouds high in the southern sky, its filtered light illuminating downtown Greenfield, casting a favorable hue over the uplifting facelift bordering the town common. Miraculously, by the time I arrived home, some three miles north and west, and stepped outside to run the dog, the moon shone brightly in a clear, starry hole framed by billowy gray clouds, akin to a large floodlight peeking through a wide, unruly smoke ring, the sphere sneaking through leafing streamside maples and reflecting off a Hinsdale Brook eddy. The sight and sound spun me off into reflection and introspection as they often do. Call it lunar influence, which again infected me, brightening a cold, gray week in a suddenly clear midnight sky; as though the clouds intentionally opened to remind me the moon was there, looking over my shoulder, coddling me till the sky cleared, the air warmed.

Gray, overcast days and full moons might signal trouble for some. Take a friend I know who recently got into a turkey-hunting jam that’s haunting him. This good, honest man now finds his fate in the hands of the government, the law, which doesn’t often display empathy for honest mistakes. Maybe someone will intervene and inject some fairness into the authorities investigating this sorry case. Perhaps they’ll understand that the way the illegality played out clearly identifies it as an error, a twist of fate, not a crime. I hope so. The man deserves a break, nothing less. But the people calling the shots probably won’t care, seldom do in such cases. Sometimes judges and juries or officers of the law must understand the gray, not just black and white. They must be willing to explore the spirit of the law, the reason it was enact ed, not just the fact that a rule has been broken. At least that’s the way I see it, not from the rigid law-and-order, red-white-and-blue perspective; my view more philosophical, not cut and dried as prosecutors and cops often demand these unforgiving days.

Remember, this opinion’s coming from a taxpaying citizen who just Tuesday appeared for jury duty in Orange, was seated and promptly yanked by the prosecutor for the third time this millennium. I guess men who reason like me are not meant to be jurors in 21st century courtrooms, even in a liberal state. And to think I now sit passing judgment at my desk, seated on a long-ago discarded walnut chair from the Hampden County Court. Is it irony or coincidence? You decide.

But, like they say, life goes on. Then you die. I guess when you think of it, we’re all just passing through a place much bigger and more complex than any of us.

Fact is, like most, I wasn’t eager to serve on that jury, anyway. Fancy that. For once a member of the majority, far from silent.

What a difference a day makes. That’s what I was thinking the day after last week’s column about the spring buds and flowers that had greeted me on a morning backyard visit with dog Lily.

What had struck me first the previous day were the burning bush’s tiny pink buds, a new color, subtle, lining the brook’s bank by the cook shed. After studying the tiny buds, I looked around to assess the progress of other trees and bushes, later recording in print what I had observed. Following a day of hot, bright sun and temps nearing 80, everything changed. That same burning bush was sporting green, not pink, the forsythia was in full yellow bloom and the maples wore that pretty pastel green of spring, having overnight gone from buds to tiny mayfly wings. But that is not what I want to discuss today. No, I want to focus on the saucer magnolia and coincidence. Yes, coincidence, something I have wrestled with often following surreal discoveries related to me and this valley called home. My conclusion is that very few weird discoveries I encounter are coincidence, but rather something far more spiritual — this from a man who’d break out in hives on a trip through the chapel door.

I wrote last week that I intended to fulfill a promise by sending a faraway female cyber pal photos of the large magnolia along the east side of my home. I wanted to reciprocate for pictures she had sent me of a Hawaiian magnolia flower weeks earlier. Later in the day, I evaluated the tree and decided to wait. More blossoms would be open the next day. So, wait I did, shooting several shots back-lit by the late-morning sun before e-mailing them to my German friend. A typical heartfelt response the next day brought me once again into the realm of coincidence vs. something deeper and more powerful; maybe a simple twist of fate, more likely a spiritual puppeteer playfully working his strings:

Dear Gary,
How nice of you to think of me and send these gorgeous sights! I had a bit of a difficult day yesterday — it was the 9th anniversary of Jon’s passing. Seeing the beautiful magnolia blossoms and learning that spring has arrived in your place really cheered me up. I do hope to meet you in person some day, dear cyber pal. Have a great weekend and enjoy the beauty of spring.
With much aloha,
Hannelore

She was referring to a boyhood pal of mine who moved far from his Franklin County home before departing this world too young, at 47, a cancer victim in Hawaii. It was there she met him and suffered through his illness, patiently nursing him along until his mom and late sister arrived for his final weeks; never easy for anyone. Hannelore has not forgotten her late friend. At least once a year she sends me a check for graveside flowers to adorn his peaceful resting place, protected under the canopy of massive hardwoods, even stately shagbark hickory, one of my favorites.

So, tell me: Was it coincidence that on an April 8 whim — sitting at my desk on a sun-splashed morn, magnolia beckoning though the window to my left, forsythias screaming from across the street — I stood to get my camera, take some shots and send them to my cyber pal? Or was I magically lifted from my seat by a force I cannot explain to brighten a sad day being suffered by a lady friend I have never met?

I cannot accept that quick trip across the south face of my old tavern as coincidence. Far more profound. Spooky, in fact.

Is it real? Or have I gone mad?

I guess it depends on the evaluator.

I was out back early Wednesday morning with four-legged friend Lily by the brook, running clear and strong, its soothing rattle penetrating dense air as the dog made her rounds, splashing enthusiastically across a shin-high rapid to wet her coat before taking a little romp on the opposite bank. She broke into the perimeter of a small hayfield, nose high into a crosswind, searching for squirrels, rabbits, maybe turkeys, anything to flush or chase up a tree. The cool, damp air was pleasant, the sun hidden beneath foggy skies that would soon burn off and bring the predicted 85-degree April day, potentially a record, perfect for the nighttime Yankees-Red Sox rubber game.

The neighborhood dogwoods and star magnolias had worn brilliant white for days, and my own forsythias had been in bloom, not peak, since the weekend, nicely complementing the yellow daffodils. Now the lilac buds had popped into tiny little green wings that seemed to visibly grow as I stood looking at them in the dull, most air that had deposited a delicate, web-like dew across the greening lawn, clearly identifying my path, showing every step I had taken from the woodshed stoop to the kennel door, then across the mouth of the cook-shed to the lip overlooking water’s edge. I noticed, standing there, that the tiny pink buds on the streamside burning bush were more noticeable than the previous day and would likely be more prominent, even from afar, after a day of bright, hot sun, the same conditions that promised to bring out the saucer magnolia blossoms on the gabled east side of the house. They had been threatening to pop for days, just needed intense sun and heat to stimulate the process. I reminded myself to later in the day snap a digital photo of that tree, one of the oldest, most beautiful magnolias in the county, tightly clenched, pink buds waiting for days to burst and reach their showy tulip petals skyward. I had promised to e-mail cyber pen pal Hannelore Hoch a photo when it bloomed. A German professor/author/curator and friend of a friend who died too young near her vacation home in Hawaii, Hannelore loves flowers and had sent me a tight shot of a Hawaiian saucer magnolia flower six or eight weeks ago, her harbinger of spring. It was then that I promised to e-mail her a shot of my own magnolia when in blossomed. I knew the time had come, waning moon settling this two-legged lunar creature temporarily into a peaceful orbit. The new moon will appear in a week, leading to a full moon at the end of the month, brightening the prospects for opening week of turkey season. The night skies will then likely be crisp and clear and cold, perfect to entice throaty gobbles from predawn hardwood roosts. Something promising for hunters to eagerly anticipate.

The sound and sight of the free-flowing stream and the thick morning air reminded me of spring fishing, and the fact that stocking reports would likely be waiting in my e-mail inbox before 9. As I watched the stream’s current, it brought me back to my younger days, when this time of year I often pushed myself to the water’s edge at the crack of dawn, before the birds sang, to take advantage of ideal water conditions and voracious feeding by shaded mountain trout. Back then, I’d catch my limit before most people were awake, clean the fish streamside, return home to package them in Ziploc bags and deliver them to my paternal grandmother, always an early riser. She’d keep what she could eat and give the rest to friends who thoroughly enjoyed them. When I kept trout for myself, they’d always be squaretails, large or small, baked or pan-fried, their moist orange meat one of New England’s natural delicacies, right up there with fiddleheads and strawberries. I learned many waters that held the beautiful, native, speckled trout and likely still do, although I have heard disheartening tales to the contrary from brook-trout aficionados. I don’t want to believe them, would rather remember how it used to be, sneaking into the back side of reservoirs or private ponds we all knew well as boys and fished regularly, always early, before household light bulbs burned.

Stocked trout were fun to catch. I can’t deny that — acrobatic, sky-pilot  rainbows bursting from the riffles, furiously wiggling in midair, hooked, irate and trying to shake or break it. But they could never compare to squaretails as table fare, and I well knew the difference. Still do. Give me a native any day, be it fish or foul or animal, two or four-legged.

Yeah, maybe I am a snooty New Englander. Not the least bit ashamed of it, either. Quite proud, in fact.

It must have been the backyard brook’s rattle, clear, free and pure, coupled with the brilliant car dinal’s joyous serenade from its burning-bush perch, that got my wheels a spinning. I was enjoying the cool, clear, sunlit morning with frisky Lily, joyful gait, tail wagging, prancing along the south bank’s soft, dirty ice, reduced to a chocolate sliver in most spots, but still there like a skinny shelf overlooking the water’s edge, reaching out to a few large boulders. When Lily broke through, she displayed caution and backed off. Even dogs respect spring.

As I stood there, lungs savoring the refreshing air that had coaxed neighbors out of doors over the weekend, it was as though someone gently tapped my left shoulder and turned me in the opposite direction, back to the stream, facing southwest. I looked up to the right of the barn’s peak and there it was, in the cloudless, soft blue sky: a ghost-like quarter-moon, waning and barely visible.

Being a moon creature of Cancer persuasion, the mix of running water and moon, even an old daylight moon, had unleashed something inside of me, drawn my attention, heightened my awareness to its passing cycle. It seems to happen more often as I grow older and wiser, understand. This lunar magnet will only strengthen in a couple of weeks when the new moon shows its first quarter in the midnight sky. A week later, the first full moon of spring, the Sap Moon, will illuminate the sky and stimulate growth everywhere; in man and mouse and memory, good and bad.

But even that old-ghost Monday moon got me thinking, reminiscing about springs past, pondering the one ahead. This lunar introspection swept me back to my wayward and mischievous youth, when sodden khaki turf and airborne moisture saturated my nostrils with an enchanting natural amphetamine, better than anything at Frontier Pharmacy or on the street — a wonder drug that liberates blithe spirits and can lead to trouble in controlled environments; schools, maybe even work, for instance. The sweet maple sap and mountain streams race freely, and so do the juices of adolescence and human emotion, which can, to say the least, be distracting and troublesome when boxed-in and disciplined. Alluring spring cologne seems to thin the blood and elevate the heart rate, making Library 101 quite unappealing to some school kids. Count me among them. So there I’d sit, fidgety, anxious to get to the ballpark with a bat and ball and glove, or maybe to grab a fishing rod and bait-can for a pleasant day of wild freedom, calling all the shots along a woodland stream.

Springtime bliss: difficult to contain, impossible to ignore.

Problem was that once I reached high school and teachers knew I loved baseball, they’d use it as a whuppin’ stick to reel me in, force me to comply with rules I wasn’t fond of. But compliance was never my strong suit, especially to people for whom I held little or no respect; so let’s just say that I spent a couple of springs with more time on rivers than the schoolyard diamond; not by choice, of course — well, at least, not mine. Such punishment created deep resentment and a wide void while I awaited the faster, more-competitive summer game, one that had no strings attached to book-and-blackboard drudgery, or droning lectures from uninspired instructors working for a paycheck, a pension and little else. I guess they weren’t all bad. No. Some were OK. But there were enough rigid, boring drones to make the whole experience unpleasant, especially once spring arrived with its fresh air and intoxicating fragrance that infiltrated the classroom like a seductive whisper through a bedroom window, beckoning like that faded daylight moon, the friendly ghost calling from the pale blue sky like a boyhood pal home for a three-day weekend.

It’s so enrapturing, yet foreboding, this thing called spring; a magical season when nests are built, eggs are hatched and fawns born. Boys beware. Girls, too. Our sap miraculously flows upstream from our roots, feeding buds, then leaves after a cold, stark, barren winter. Gray skeletons overnight turn to rich green spheres, full of life and vigor. How could it not be difficult to rein in these sweet lilac joys brought by our most beguiling season? A kid no longer, it still inspires me, tickles my fancy, rouses a primal physiological freshet unlike any other.

I do hope spring fever never fades in me. I’d rather be dead. A playful attic spirit pulling mischievous springtime pranks.