The Harvest Moon has passed, wild asters smile and Henry Ford was a fascist. If you don’t believe it, look it up. It’s true.

I don’t know where that came from but must admit I’m under the gun. Off to a late start. Where does the time go?

I do have an excuse. Got tangled in titillating conversation with an overnight guest. Old friend. Retired, high-ranking military officer who must have inhaled old-tavern truth serum. Yes indeed, a spellbinding chat we had over morning coffee — stunning, in fact. Quite surprising were the views expressed. Not what you’d expect from a good Eagle Scout. But don’t forget that this proud soldier got a saturating whiff of humid Southeast Asian death and destruction way back when. So it’s all about combat perspective, I guess. Truthfully, I could spin off into pages of reflection from that intriguing three-hour conversation, but won’t. Not now anyway. Maybe I’ll return to the topic if space permits. We’ll see.

Let’s start with the easy stuff, like quick mention that the fall-trout-stocking trucks are rolling, then a quick recounting of an exhilarating Saturday hike through the highland hardwoods in the neighborhood of old Uncle Abel Dinsmore, another military man who, after serving with distinction and valor in two colonial wars, eventually saw the light and questioned his own infant government, ultimately taking up arms against it and receiving a home visit from Sam Adams himself, the American Revolution’s real father, way before drones and satellites and mechanical honey-bee surveillance devices made to eavesdrop and record conversation in private homes. My Saturday mission was a hard-mast hunt, assessment of available acorns and whatever other nuts I could find walking secluded rocky spines that bring me as close to heaven as I’ll likely ever get on two legs. What I found is what I expected, based on bottomland observation: a good crop of acorns, some hickories and, for some reason above my pay scale, not a freakin’ beechnut anywhere, at least not under the smooth silver-barks I examined.

What a difference a year makes. A year ago along virtually the same route — twice — there was some moose sign but not a hint of deer or bears, no sight or sound of a squirrel. This time, with nuts available, the deer and bears were back, along with moose roaming up from the swamps, all foragers crunching acorns and leaving behind tell-tale crumbs. The question is: what will be left by the time the shotgun deer season arrives? I have been witness to similar Septembers when the hunting prospects are promising indeed, then the deer vanish with the acorns by December, when they’re forced to find other food sources to carry them into winter. Unless the acorn crop is overwhelming, which I have also seen, it can be wiped out in a couple of months by deer, bear, moose, squirrels, turkeys and whatever else devours them as a rich protein source.

As for apples, well, although I didn’t go out of my way, what I saw from the road in small stands differed little from the lowland scene — scanty fruit in trees or on the ground, yet no apparent shortage of grapes and berries. It would appear to me from casual observation that bowhunters who like to hunt wild orchards should change strategy. Then again, as we all know, some hunters seem to always “find” apples in their trusted orchards, but we won’t go there in a family newspaper. It’s naughty stuff.

Speaking of taboo, why not traipse briefly back to the overnight visit from that old friend and Vietnam vet, some of which I can tie into an interesting Monday wildlife-related sighting followed by what I personally viewed as annoying intrusion into my otherwise peaceful Greenfield Meadows neighborhood later the same day.

The sighting was that of a big, deep, solitary moose track discovered along the edge of a cornfield littered with acorns, until recently, ignored for weeks by deer. I have seen a moose in that very field in recent years and figure if I spent a little more time searching, I could have found a few more hoof prints. Why bother? I can’t imagine that moose stuck around the Meadows long after the helicopter invasion we all endured midday Monday. When I first heard the choppers stuttering overhead, I tried to ignore them. They pass through annually this time of year looking for marijuana, and had been in the neighborhood once previously this year that I knew of. But this time they hung around for some time, were loud and disruptive, circling, hovering, making a racket. I thought perhaps they had found those three Afghani officers who went missing from Cape Cod. But I minded my own business and never left my reading chair, figuring I could inquire about the maneuver at work with a farmer colleague who lives down the road.

Although I couldn’t get much from my trusty source that night, the chatter really started to fly freely the next morning, when the neighborhood was abuzz. Word had it that it had been quite a paramilitary operation, with loud choppers, tinted-window SUVs and police swarming to recover four lousy pot plants from some poor soul’s backyard garden near GCC. The prevailing attitude was: “What a waste of taxpayers’ money.” When I called my wife to deliver the neighborhood scuttlebutt, she had witnessed the commotion Monday and figured there must have been a bad accident somewhere. So the fellas had a loud presence, one that apparently didn’t set right with private citizens trying to relax in the comfort of home.

Well, lo and behold, a chopper returned to my neighborhood Wednesday during the parlor discussion with my Vietnam-vet friend, and anyone familiar with Vietnam vets is probably aware that the sound of choppers can trigger bad reactions that can spin a man back into places you don’t want to go with him. Grounded, this vet didn’t get sucked back to the Mekong Delta, Khe Sahn or Da Nang. No, the sound just stirred conversation about America, politics, law enforcement, surveillance, you name it. The opinions uttered from this insider were shocking, unexpected and, to be honest, comforting to a man of my ilk. I do wish I could go into it, because the average Joe needs to know and likely will never catch a faint whiff. The people pulling the strings behind the scenes are clever indeed, deceptive spinmeisters skilled at creating demons and slogans, instilling fear and delivering messages aimed at obscuring reality. It’s a diabolical con game.

Ooops! Better skedaddle. Back to the fascist-Ford book, which is nothing new to me.