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.

The air was cool and refreshing, the yard shaded, tiny splashes of sun here and there, lawn wet with gray, misty dew. High white clouds appeared motionless in the pale blue sky, almost hiding a higher half-moon smiling down from the heavens like a ghost peering around a doorjamb. The previous day had surpassed 90 and the new one, Fourth of July, flags and parties everywhere, promised much of the same; a tolerable high-pressure heat, not oppressive, sort of what I remember on the mean streets of Denver, East Colfax Avenue, July-August 1975, then an impulsive kid with more spunk than wisdom.

Anyway, on that weekend morning, before 7, I had already closed the windows and shut the doors to trap in the cool night air and prepare the house for the impending heat. That done, I walked to the backyard, brookside kennel for Lily and Buddy, always eager for their morning romp, the earlier the better. Complicating matters from my perspective on this day were two turkey broods I’d been dealing with for a couple of weeks in a lush, fragrant, knee-high red clover field where I run the dogs. It’s a given that those turkeys will be there early along the edge of a young, tilled, squash and melon field just before the road makes a sharp right and drops down into what I call Sunken Meadow. I have been careful to keep the dogs away from the two hens and 12 poults for fear that the little ones were vulnerable. Experience told me they could fly well enough to escape, but why test it? I’d rather avoid problems that a frisky pair of Springers can deliver.

It was about this time last year at the same site that I had seen a similar brood flush into the tree line overlooking the Green River. They just sat there, all nine of them, a hen and eight little ones, tantalizing Ringo, my old headstrong bird dog. He barked his fool head off, leaping up the trunk of a massive black cherry tree like a coon hound, only springier and more athletic. Funny thing: now Ringy and that cherry tree are both gone: the dog passing just before Christmas; the tree, felled during that microburst, macroburst or whatever it was that devastated my neighborhood a month or so back, now reduced to a pile of cordwood.

With the dogs boxed on my pickup, I turned onto the farm road leading to my destination and I was somewhat surprised that old Ev Hatch wasn’t out early picking away at his staked tomatoes before the heat struck. Must be he decided to take the holiday off, God bless him, still plenty spry at 79. The man deserves a break. Those plants of his are growing tall and strong these days, seem to be adding three inches daily in the summer swelter. Some of the adjacent hayfields have been scalped, equipment parked along the road, but the clover is impressive — tall, dense and, at that time of day, summer-morning saturated.

As I reached the top of a soft dusty rise on the rutty road, hay rake to my right, I scanned the melon-field edge for sign of turkeys. Sure enough, two motionless brown heads and gray-brown necks poking above the clover. The two hens. No doubt the little ones were nearby, just couldn’t see them until even with the tilled field, where they were foraging like furry little footballs through the soft dirt; scratching for worms or grubs or insects, maybe grasshoppers, which they seem to have a special fondness for. I never slowed down as I passed — the hens erect and motionless — just poked along before taking that sharp right-hand corner leading to an open gate to Sunken Meadow, presumably out of harm’s way.

At the base of the gentle slope I spun my rig around, pointed it outward and parked. The low, placid Green River was producing a soft, soothing rattle, percussion for the sweet birdsong emanating from a tangled, rosebush-bordered wetland. God, that meadow is beautiful. Never gets old or boring. Always something new to spark your curiosity, be it a flower or tree, a critter or the fresh scent of something dead and ripe.

I exited the truck and dropped the tailgate, Buddy whining anxiously, nudging the porta-kennel’s metal-grate door with his nose, scratching at it with his left-front paw. He was intense, wanted out badly. I pulled the pin and he flew to the ground like a missile, sprinting south and reaching the back of the field in world-record time. Lily remained calm, standing patiently, watching the incredible Buddy show from inside her elevated perch. When I released her, she calmly hopped down and sauntered 100 feet west to the gnarly rosebush hedgerow. When I switched my attention to Buddy, I saw him quartering the field back toward me, racing, bounding gracefully through high cover, nose high, front legs curled under him to clear the tall grass and wildflowers. He was searching for rabbits or whatever else was filling his moist nostrils under ideal scenting conditions before the sun rose and baked the field dry.

When I returned my attention to Lily, she was out of sight and I gave her a friendly holler. When she didn’t appear, I called a little louder. Still no response. Then, suddenly I heard some sharp “putts” and saw the two mature hen turkeys flying at me, clearing the tree line along the meadow’s elevated western lip. Yep, Lily had found those turkeys, at least 150 yards and up a level from where we were parked. The first hen to clear the tree line separating the two fields landed high in a tall, ancient, hickory tree within 50 yards of me in the middle of the meadow. I have always called hickories like it smooth-bark as opposed to shagbarks. Different cordwood dealers over the years have also referred to the wood as smooth-bark hickory, but that’s the vernacular, not the official name. Curious, I later snipped a stem of seven leaves and Googled it to make a proper identification; most likely bitternut hickory (also called pignut or swamp hickory). The tree I’m referring to is one of only two out in the middle of the field. Can’t say what the other is (something strange), but the bitternut hickory has many offspring, mature and immature, along the perimeter. The one out in the open appears to be the granddaddy of them all. Some others along the edge are large; not as large.

But, let us not digress … back to the turkeys. The second, trailing hen cleared the field hickory and touched down 80 yards behind it in a tall riverside maple. The poults, all 12 of them emitting soft alarm putts, flew into the first tree line their mothers had cleared, the one separating the upper and lower levels, and perched high within 100 feet of each other, observing the scene from safety. I gave Lily a call with the curled stag-horn whistle on my lanyard and, sure enough, she was soon sprinting enthusiastically down the road into Sunken Meadow, covered in mud, 14 turkeys observing from their lofty perches.

I can’t say for certain whether Lily had seen or smelled those turkeys when we drove through, or if she had been chasing something else, maybe a rabbit or squirrel, got to the crest of the hill overlooking Sunken Meadow and caught wind of the birds from there. My guess is the latter, because I think if she had known the flock was in the upper field, she would have sprinted directly to it when released from her crate. Who knows or cares? The event had made for another interesting Sunken-Meadow field trip. It’s one of many reasons I go there daily; that and the tranquility, the symphony of soft flowing water and birdsong. This time I learned about smooth-bark hickories; now even know them by name, will probably absorb more about them in coming weeks.

It makes me wonder what my next Sunken-Meadow lesson will be. Never know. Maybe I’ll focus on that other tree, the weird one  I’ve passed many times without giving it a second look. Not a tree I’m familiar with … yet.

July is here and with it all the manmade anadromous-fish passageways on Connecticut Valley dams will soon be closed, signaling the end of another disappointing spring spawning run.

How else to assess the 2010 migratory-fish numbers, which, through Monday, showed 167,486 American shad, 49 Atlantic salmon and a not-even-worth-reporting 92 blueback herring? Imagine that, 92 freaking herring, which came by the hundreds of thousands in recent memory. It may as well be zero the way I look at it. In fact, it makes you wonder when the numbers of all three aforementioned migratory-fish species will be just that: zero. Seems to be trending that way, no matter what the experts cashing state and federal paychecks would have you believe. The outlook is bleak. They know it. It’s all about climate change, stupid; has to be. That and other factors restoration people have little or no control over.

Many readers familiar with this column over the past 30 years inaccurately characterize me as a Connecticut River Salmon Restoration Program opponent. They’re wrong. A foe I am not, just a realist, one who has scrutinized the numbers over parts of five decades. I am not a numbers-cruncher. In fact, I hate numbers; would much rather play with words. But it doesn’t take a mathematician or scientist to understand that the numbers I’m speaking of ain’t good. And anyone who tries to tell you numbers don’t matter is a fool or a liar, your choice, because numbers do matter in scientific experiments, and that’s exactly what our salmon-restoration project is.

Salmon were indeed here when New England was discovered, and they remained here into the late Federal Period before disappearing due to the construction of dams and the end of the Little Ice Age, likely more the latter than the former. During the last half of the 20th century began an altruistic, aggressive, interactive federal and state restoration program aimed at establishing a viable salmon sport fishery to the Connecticut River and its largest tributaries. Ever since, officials overseeing the coordinated effort have given it their absolute best effort. No one can say otherwise. It was a valiant effort, with many of the finest hearts and minds committed. But their best efforts cannot overcome climactic and ecological changes that have in recent years decimated salmon stocks on both of our coasts, particularly the North Atlantic. Now scientists fear Atlantic salmon extinction. Yes, extinction, which, if it comes to pass will be sad indeed. Think of it: the greatest of all Atlantic freshwater game fish a thing of the past, history.

Isn’t fear of extinction the reason for putting Atlantic salmon on the endangered-species list? Is it not a possibility that they will all be gone by the time my grandsons are parents? Don’t doubt it. It’s real.

So let us not bury our heads in the Maritimes’ gravelly shores. It’s time to face facts. The days of fishing for migratory New England Atlantic salmon are over. Sad but true. In fact, it appears that the days are numbered for even a random New England salmon showing up here and there, especially in the Connecticut River, the mouth of which has in its best days been at the southern extreme of Atlantic salmon range. Maybe that’s what these grammar-school teachers bringing their students to the rivers’ edge for immature salmon-stocking field trips ought to be telling them; not that the fish they’re stocking will soon be back to spawn as adults; a romantic concept that unfairly keeps them on board for years to come, misleads them.

If there was anything really valuable at stake here — say a home, a family fortune, even a priceless heirloom — then there would be no one playing or encouraging others to play this game of impossible odds. It would then be called a con game, those promoting it swindlers.