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.