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.