September’s here. The full August moon is waning; never really appeared till after the fact, when low gray skies opened for a splendid, cool, clear, sunny weekend, great weather for opening the barn and letting warm, dry winds chase out lingering dampness.

The weekend was special for another reason. Grandson Jordie paid a solo visit, his first, midway through this, his fourth year. It was fun, as always, bright eyes to greet me each morning as I sat reading in my La-Z-Boy recliner, sun entering through the parlor window to brilliantly light my pages, warm me.

We went off Sunday morning to an outdoor chapel he’s grown fond of, for morning services along the Green River, where I daily walk my dogs at least once. This time, after setting the animals free from their crates on back of my truck, I pointed out a three-quarter ghost moon high in the western sky. Jordie was confused.

“Ghost moon?”

“Yes, pale yet prominent in the deep blue sky; ghostlike; shouldn’t be there.”

But there it was, a remnant from the night before, lit by the bright, low morning sun. He understood. On to another matter.

“Grampy, can I have your whistles? We don’t want to lose the dogs.”

“Yes, of course, but make sure you keep the lanyard around your neck so we don’t lose it; and, please, don’t overdo it with the whistles. Lily and Buddy will be confused if you use them too much. Only whistle when they’ve been out of sight for a while, have run off.”

Again, he got it, acknowledged so with sweet, innocent eye contact as we made our way to the galvanized gate separating the upper and lower meadows. When we reached the barway, he turned for the path skirting it through brush and I stopped him, pointed out crimson poison ivy, said it was no time to tempt the fates. We’d walk through the gate.

“Oh, I didn’t know you could open that gate. You never opened it before?”

“No need. Poison ivy is most dangerous this time of year.”

“Oh. I had poison ivy on my legs once. It’s itchy.”

I remembered.

We walked down the compacted farm road into Sunken Meadow and traipsed through ankle-high ryegrass and clover, dogs romping through the Christmas trees and into the thick wild-rosebush border, now impenetrable to humans. The animals would burst out of the tangle, romp through the meadow and return to the dense periphery, searching enthusiastically for fresh scent to chase, their energy infecting Jordie, savoring the cool, clear freedom entering his lungs, each inhale illuminating his warm hazel eyes.

Halfway down our first straightaway, Jordie suddenly picked up the pace into a joyful, foot-free trot or shuffle toward an obvious destination. He was headed for the wild, swamp apples; curious, wanting to check for fallen fruit. How did I know? Because I had shown him the trees the previous fall and was able to decipher his unsaid object of interest. The apples were small and green, few on the ground, much to the chagrin of Jordie and the dogs, which devour them as eagerly as wild beasts when available.

When we got to our second bend, confronted by a choice between circling back to the truck or continuing toward the river, Jordie opted for water, where he loves to play, poke around, walk through the stream in his wicked-cool “water shoes,” Keen sandals. At the river’s edge where we always stop, a pair of wooden picnic tables stood under another large apple tree shading the high, undercut bank overlooking a now undernourished river creeping toward Greenfield Pool. There, the dogs scoured the turf for drops, eating many small green apples as Jordie, his T-shirt draped over my right shoulder, played in the river, alarmed about an underwater “crab” fleeing along the gravel bed.

“That’s not a crab, Jordie,” I told him. “It’s a crayfish that looks like a crab. Don’t be afraid. It won’t bother you.”

“What are crayfish?”

“A freshwater crab, sort of; more like a little lobster.”

“Oh.”

After maybe 20 minutes, I was able to coax the boy out of the water and back toward the truck. I used the excuse that I had left my vehicle open and vulnerable to mischief. I wasn’t really concerned. He knew.

“You have the keys, Grampy.”

“Yes, I know, but we still must start back.”

“OK.”

When we were almost out of Sunken Meadow, facing the short, gentle ascent to the gate, I pointed to a female sumac clump along the lip, large conical bobs of drupes adding splashes of red to the lush green wetland.

“See those red cones on the short, green, bushy trees?” I asked, pointing.

“Yes.”

“Well, those are clumps of berries. The Indians used to make lemonade out of them.”

“You mean juice?”

“Yes, juice, sweetened with honey or maple sugar.”

“Yummmm. That sounds delicious,” … his words, not mine.

When we reached the gate, still ajar, we passed through and I refastened it before walking a short distance to my undisturbed vehicle. Jordie gave the dogs several short whistles and the goldenrod shook before they popped out of sumacs and onto the farm road. They greeted us, ran to the truck, hopped onto the tailgate and, eventually, into their crates, which I secured before re-entering the vehicle. Inside, I buckled Jordie’s seatbelt, then mine, and mentioned that the ghost moon had vanished. I was wrong. He looked up as I pulled away and corrected me.

“Grampy, there’s the ghost moon, right there (pointing).”

“Oh yes. I see it, much lower, resting on the horizon, ready to disappear.”

“Horizon?”

“Where the endless blue sky meets the mountains, right on the ridge-top overlooking Grampy’s house.”

“Oh, horizon, where the sky meets the mountains.”

Again, he understood.

“In a few minutes that moon’ll be gone,” I said.

“But that’s OK, Grampy, the sun is up.”

“Yes, Jordie, the sun is up and tonight the moon will reappear over there on the eastern horizon.”

“Why?”

“Because, it’ll be a new night. Then, when the sun rises tomorrow, it’ll be a new day. A smaller ghost moon will again disappear over the western horizon, and the sun will later follow it over the same ridge when night is near.”

He looked at me, pensive, asked why. Not an easy concept to comprehend. He will in time. I didn’t want to overload him with too much in one session, fearing confusion, that clueless cousin of curiosity.

Who knows? I may yet turn the boy into a pantheist — nature, dear to my heart and soul, his deity. We’ll avoid Boy Scout and alter-boy discipline, nudging him along instead with gentle, independent instruction from a loved one he trusts and respects. It’s unlikely the boy will become a cop or a soldier or a Walmart manager. Too independent.

I do hope nobody claims he’s been twisted by an alternative path, destined for the fires of non-comformist hell. That would be wrong.

Hateful.

Ignorant.

I’m closed into my study, air-conditioner purring, sun trying to poke through dense gray skies and break up the muggy air. My older son is crafting a new song in the room at my back and, me, I’m hoping to find enough time to mow later, wondering where this weekly writing journey will take me.

It’s interesting how stories develop, how there are days when you sit down and try to come up with something, consider taking the week off, rarely find a good enough excuse. Maybe this week I had one. Son Gary II’s family of four has shared my home for the last couple of weeks, which has given me an extended period to spend with grandsons Jordie, 4, and Arie, 10 months. Usually, I spend a day here, a day there, maybe even a weekend with them, but never have they actually lived with me this long, Jordie eagerly tailing along on my daily travels, which can get interesting, sometimes maybe even “inappropriate” for kids, depending on who’s passing judgment. So, yes, this was a first. Fun. Brought me back to parenting. Gave me a chance to teach Jordie in a non-threatening environment, a far cry from what he’ll likely soon discover in some breathless schoolhouse, where, unfortunately, he’s bound to encounter some bored “educator” standing at the chalkboard for a paycheck, not the love of teaching. Then it’ll be all about raising your hand before speaking, sitting still and memorizing lists of words that mean little but must be spelled correctly to succeed. It doesn’t matter if you understand and know how to use these words, just spell them right, Sonny, if you want to pass. Ah, yes, the sad state of education and standardized testing. Peee-U.

It’s sad when you think about it, which I find myself occasionally doing, especially when I’m getting a daily dose of inquisitive, youthful eyes aching for new information and concepts, fresh words for an expanding vocabulary, new ideas to meld with the old and form perspective. The questions are intuitive, fascinating, often surprising, never boring. They come at you from all angles: in the barn, by the brook, in the car, at the supper table, on our daily walks through Sunken Meadow. Basic stuff like who, what, where and why? Maybe when. Constant questions; answers often requiring finesse, the ability to drop to a juvenile level that can be easily comprehended, comparison and analogy helping along the way.

Take for example the concept of a swollen river, which I tried to impress upon Jordie on our walks along the Green River, our trips to the backyard brook. The first time I used that description we were headed toward a section of the Green where he daily picks his way down an undercut back near an apple tree to play in the water. As we approached the familiar site along a grassy farm road, I pondered aloud if the river would be swollen following the rain. Jordie looked at me inquisitively, like, “Huh, what do you mean, Grampy, swollen river?” I asked him if he ever noticed how after a tumble on his knee, elbow or hand, it hurts and gets bigger. Well, that’s called swollen: bigger. Same is true for a river or stream. Rain makes them bigger, or swollen. I wasn’t certain he got it, but thought he did. Then, Wednesday morning, I knew the lesson had registered when, on an alternate route to the same spot, he asked, “Grampie, do you think the river is swollen?” Instant gratification. More, please. And, yes, more was on the agenda.

When we got to our spot where the dogs always jump in, swim across, get a drink, we sat on a red-stained picnic table overlooking the river and I pointed out the murky water below. I told him the river was riled up, dirty, that it would be a good day to catch fish because fish feel invisible in dirty water, come out to feed on the many insects and worms that have been swept off the bank or trees and bushes and into the stream. He seemed to get it, will someday probably ask to go fishing during a rain. I hope so, would love to teach him to fish for trout on a rainy summer day, perhaps someday pass on all my expensive rods, reels and accessories that have sat idle far too long.

Jordie’s learning experience at Sunken Meadow was not limited to the river. No, much more. He learned about the dogs, hunting dogs, all nose and tail, boundless energy. I’d park and release them from their porta-kennels daily and then watch as they enthusiastically jumped down off the bed of my truck, sprinting down the rows of young Christmas trees, bounding, springing off their back legs, front legs curled underneath at the elbows, bursting through the dense brush along the perimeter, then popping back out, excited. Pure joy. From this he learned a couple of lessons. First, the dogs were looking for cottontail rabbits that had left their scent behind while eating clover, white and red, lots off it. Perhaps they also smelled deer and ducks or geese or wild turkeys, maybe squirrels, all of which will come to a fertile wetland like that to feed and nest and romp. Second, he learned to read the dogs by focusing on their tails, the faster they wagged the hotter the scent. After a few days, he understood and pointed it out to me when either Lily or Buddy, “were on a fresh scent,” a phrase he heard me use often, new to him, a new concept that he won’t soon forget. It’s ingrained.

Another time, we were down in that same quiet slice of Connecticut Valley paradise and the owner came through in her blue station wagon. She stopped to talk, told me she heard I had written more about her property, seemed cool with it, then told us the tale of her clover field. She plants red and white clover there to save her Christmas trees from deer, which will eat evergreens when hard-up but won’t touch them when the rows between the young trees contain tasty clover undergrowth. “Some people shoot the deer when they destroy their crops,” I later told Jordie. “The lady uses a creative approach to save her trees, and the deer.” His response? “She’s a nice lady, Grampy.” Indeed. He got it. More than one way to skin a cat. Someday I’ll teach him that saying, too. Bet on it. In the right situation, when I know he’ll understand. Someday I may even use the old “closer the bone, sweeter the meat” saying, then explain it’s meaning. When he uses it, someone, somewhere will probably emit a sinister chuckle and he’ll wonder why. He’ll soon understand that, too, probably sooner than I did, and I was far from sheltered.

We also touched on the killing concept. Jordie knows I hunt, am capable of killing. He often asks me about it, stuff like: “Grampy, you can’t kill mommy deer or baby deer;” or “Would a hunter kill a mother duck with babies?” No, I tell him, laws are in place to protect babies from being orphaned. Hunting occurs in the fall when immature creatures can fly and run and fend for themselves with others of their species to help. It’s never easy for a child to comprehend because a child relates wildlife directly to human beings and it’s difficult to justify hunting and killing on those terms. But the fact is that human beings are predators, and birds and animals and fish are not human. Case closed. Once again it takes finesse to explain the difference, one “animal lovers” — you know, the ones who hang up their lambskin coats before sitting down to a medium-rare, Whately Inn rack of lamb — can’t seem to get their heads around. Jordie will understand. I’ll teach him not to be a hypocrite, to be tolerant of all types of folks as long as they don’t try to impose their will and lifestyle on him. Value your independence, your freedom: that’s what I’ll teach him. Don’t try to fit under that cookie-cutter they’ll try to squish you into. Fight back. Be an individual, maybe even “eccentric” if that’s what they want to call you. I hope he listens.

Jordie is gone now. He went back to Vermont Wednesday. I’ll miss him. I hope “the authorities” don’t ruin him, suffocate his curiosity, his spontaneity. He has a chance in Vermont, I guess, where they seem to have a clue. But one bad experience can do irreparable damage to a young lad, send him off on a defiant ride that can make life miserable. I know. I lived it. To be honest, loved every minute of it.

It’s true that it’s safer to play the game by the rules. True, indeed. Less trouble. But it’s also true that independence nurtures wisdom.

I know readers will probably get sick of hearing about my first and only grandchild, Jordan Steel Sanderson, 2, of central Vermont, but I must share with you his first hunting story.

On his visits to Greenfield, Jordie has become quite fond of my neighbors’ flock of chickens, which he chases and feeds with absolute joy, enthralled. He seems to have no fear of the hens but has grown to respect the long-spurred rooster he calls “Cockadoodle” in an adorable tongue. But that’s just the preface to this tale, which began during my pre-hunt, morning ritual: digging out the side-by-side and boxing it, strapping on the left-knee brace for support, dressing in my bibs and vest, securing my shooting glasses around the backs of my ears, filling the vest’s shell-sleeves inside the pockets . Little Jordie was all eyes and questions, “What’s that?” and “Why?” the staples.

With that behind us, we retrieved the dogs, all three of them, and boxed them up in the portable kennels on my truck bed for a quick pre-hunt run in East Colrain. On the trip up the hill, we talked about the details of the hunt, how the dog smells the bird and pursues it until it flushes, then Grampy shoots it and the dog retrieves it. All ears, he pointed to warblers and cardinals flying through the multi-flora roses when we poked through overgrown pasture on both sides of the road and said, “There’s a bird, Grampy.” I explained that I hunted for larger birds called game birds, that I could better explain it by showing him a painting on the wall at home of a spaniel retrieving a cock pheasant. Then he’d understand.

When we arrived at our destination, one he’s grown familiar with, and let the dogs out, he asked where my gun was. I told him it was cased in the truck bed. He wanted it. I told him it wasn’t the place. We weren’t hunting, just running the dogs.

“Oh,” he said, acceptingly.

On the return trip home, Jordie pointed out a couple more birds he wanted to hunt, then told me he wanted to go hunting with me. I explained he was too young, that I can’t wait until he’s old enough to go with me.

“Why?”

Because the brush is too thick for a little boy, I told him, then stopped at a power line to show him. He seemed to understand.

Once home, I put one dog in the box stall and rode off with the other two in the truck, Jordie waving bye. “I’ll be back,” I told him, “and if we get any birds, I’ll show them to you.”

He smiled, waving, right fingers bending forward at mid-knuckle.

An hour or two later, my friend and I pulled into the driveway with two pheasants in back, a cock and a hen. Jordie was entertaining my parents, feeding bread to the cockadoodle and his harem in front of the carriage sheds as I pulled into my parking spot, sun shining brightly, pleasant noontime air.

When we got out of the truck, Jordie was distracted by the chickens and paid little attention to us before I told him we had a couple of birds. Did he want to see them?

That got his attention, and he trotted toward the truck. I reached into the bed, grabbed the two pheasant by the feet and hoisted them waist-high in front of him. He looked them over briefly and I noticed his expression change.

“Grampy, why the birds dead?”

“Because I shot them.”

“That’s not a good idea.”

Hey, what can I say? The kid’s got a conscience. Not a bad thing. Over time, I’m confident he’ll understand. I’ll bring him out in the field, introduce him to the joy of the hunt, the game hunters play. We’ll dress out the birds we kill for the table, then roast and eat them. Maybe then he’ll be able to justify an act he’s having trouble with before his third birthday.

If he can’t morally justify it, well, I can live with that, too. Some can’t. It’s OK. I have no problem with it; at least not until they tell me it’s wrong for me to hunt.

That, I do have a problem with.

After enduring the frightful years of parenting difficult adolescents, you tend to forget the joys of young, sponge-brained, preschool boys, eager to absorb whatever you throw at them. Then, if you’re lucky, a grandson arrives and drops a refresher course right into your breadbasket.

This past weekend was a case in point, when Jordan Steele Sanderson, 2½, brought me to a place I had been meaning to go. For weeks I had wanted to inspect the beaver dam that broke and wreaked havoc in East Colrain late on the morning of Sept. 13, sending a surge of water a mile downhill into the Green River of Falltown Gore. The West Leyden Road neighborhood now refers to that event as ”the tsunami,” which may be overstating it a bit. But it did indeed damage a couple of culverts that required touch-up repair, and could have been worse, far worse, when you ponder it.

Anyway, with little Jordie in town Sunday, I had the needed impetus to go up there and closely examine the breaking point The boy would be the beneficiary. Nothing like a nature lesson from Grampy for a young, inquisitive, bright-eyed boy, totally absent of the distrust spawned by stifling schoolhouse discipline. You know the suffocating, military-style routine: Don’t ask if you aren’t called upon, and sit still, no wiggling your foot to release the anxiety of being cooped up on a bright, otherwise invigorating afternoon. And don’t bother asking why, either. The answer is, ”Because I said so.” Never what an inquiring mind wants to hear. How boring. Like my Vietnam combat veteran pal told me many times in intimate conversation: ”Give him a half a thimble full of brains and one more stripe than you and you gotta take orders from him.”

What a nightmare for a private or student.

But, back to the flood and its destructive path, which has, in a month’s time, pretty much blended back into the landscape. All that’s left is cold-patch here, roadside reinforcement there, and a gaping 15-foot hole akin to a dynamite blast in the middle of the secluded, once-formidable earthen dam. The hole vividly displays the violence and force of the event that unleashed a disruptive torrent through a tranquil hilltown hollow for an hour or two, dropping the depth of a mucky, two-acre beaver pond some five feet, lots of water, filthy brown.

I remember thinking shortly after discovering the flooded meadow at Paul Moyer’s produce farm that it wouldn’t take long for the beavers to repair their dam and again impound Johnson Brook to reinforce their wetland colony. But, being no beaver expert, I was mistaken. To my surprise, the hole was intact, with no hint of attempted repair. Instead, the beavers had constructed two small dams within 10 feet of each other 20 about feet downstream from the blowout. I assume that they will, in time, build it back up and refill the pond to its original depth. So, it’ll be interesting to monitor, a nature’s classroom for me and the young boy. And although it’s just an amateur hunch, my suspicion is that a lot will change between now and the spring freshet, maybe even between now and snowfall.

Once out and about on-site — grandparents and boy — I led them afoot a short distance back into the wetland to show Jordan the pointed stumps and felled trees as my three dogs slashed and splashed through the dense cattails, their enthusiasm infecting the boy to the core, jacking him up like the sound of a playground Ding-Dong Cart. You could read it in his face, his eyes and his light-footed gait — the pure joy of open, boyhood freedom I myself enjoyed during years of unsupervised play in the South Deerfield woods and fields. There was then much more open space down there than now; more freedom, too.

After poking around the dam for a while, the three of us took a soggy walk around the perimeter of a freshly brush-hogged field to a solitary apple tree standing tall and green along the overgrown foundation of an old barn that once wore the sweat stains of my ancestors, Jordan’s too. Standing 15 feet from the tree, the boy was captivated by the dogs’ activity. Having never seen a dog eat an apple, he thought it amusing and described it as ‘’silly” in his imperfect tongue. He stood and watched them slither in and out of the dense underbrush surrounding the tree, disappearing briefly before poking back through carrying small red apples in their mouths. They’d trot a short distance into the clearing, lay down, patiently break off bites and devour them before returning to the tree, picking up another apple and repeating the process several times. Soon Jordie joined into the game, picking up apples, running out and throwing them into the field, where one of the animals would chase, pounce on it and eat it to his youthful glee. When the dogs had had enough, we walked back to the truck, boxed them up and headed home fulfilled. A worthwhile trip.

Upon our return, we kenneled the animals, two in the back yard, one in the box stall, and went inside, he to his toys in the TV room, me to the computer, where I Googled ”beaver,” pulled up a site and went to retrieve the boy. When told that there were beavers on the computer, he enthusiastically sprang to his feet, reached for my wife’s hand and said, ”Nanny, come.” She didn’t, but he and I did, going promptly to the study, where, on the computer screen, he saw many pictures of beavers, beaver ponds, beaver huts, beaver footprints, and beaver dams, all sights fresh in his recent memory. I enlarged the individual photos, described what we were looking at, and he listened intently, the field-trip imprint still clear in his fertile little mind.

The young, inquisitive boy had tasted the succulent fruit of non-threatening exploration and discovery, a short but meaningful trip, about perfect in duration for a curious, far-from terrible 2. There will be more, many more similar lessons, equally invigorating, fun and free of pressure. Can there ever be too much of such learning? Not in my world. Soon enough for him, though, the dynamic will abruptly change, like that exploding beaver dam, and the innocent little boy will be shoehorned into a hard wooden chair, behind cold brick walls, under stark, white, humming lights, those sorry sunlight substitutes. Yes, this precious grandson of mine and many like him cannot avoid institutional learning, lessons some of the best and brightest learn to loathe; confining, restrictive and tedious to a creative, free spirit.

It makes you wonder. Isn’t there a better way to teach and learn? Is rote learning and A-B-C-D or All-of-the-Above options really the way to go?

It works for some.

Not me.