I knew before pulling out my desk chair Wednesday morning that it was dangerous. I could sense it. Why had I picked up that morning phone call, breathed that refreshing air on my walk, watched Chubby freewheel like I once did many years ago, just the thought of it spinning my wheels into another realm? Problem is, back when I could run, I didn’t know where to go. Now I know where to go and can’t get there. Oh well. Such is life. No complaints.

First the phone call, old friend, faraway, separated by two or three time zones. The man was a ballplayer in his day, not one of these delusional wannabes still trying to prove prowess. It was early morning from my friend’s location so I knew it had to be something important but wasn’t expecting this. A family man who never “wandered” to my knowledge, he was true blue for nearly 40 years of marriage to his high school sweetheart. Then, out of a clear blue sky with thin white clouds of no ill intent, it just happened, akin to an airborne seed that falls on a perfect spot and immediately flourishes. Yes, an attraction took root and now my buddy’s feeling quite guilty while dreading the inevitable “chat” with his soon-to-be betrayed partner, a guilt softened by emotional euphoria like no other. Why he called me I do not know. I hadn’t spoken to him in years, maybe 10, but we were tight in our day, still are it seems. He probably knew I was cut from a different cloth and seldom choose to follow conventional paths or direct others toward them.

We spoke an hour. I assured him that I would still be his friend when others rejected him as a selfish louse, her as a heartless home-breaker. I don’t view such affairs through the preacher’s lens. I say if the wind deposits you in utopia and you know it was meant to be, go with your heart, your soul and Nature’s will — Chamber of Commerce, PTA and Ecumenical Council be damned. Of course, that’s just me, the adaptive pantheist and contrarian. But enough of that. Newspapers can, you know, be quite uncomfortable with such blasphemous chit-chat, stuff that stirs the ire of priests, judges, school committees, and chiefs of police, self-appointed guardians, all, of freedom and justice. Trust me, I’ll have my say, am working on ebbs and flows, development of characters and dialogue. Never easy, it’s been under way for some time now, through inspiring spurts and annoying clogs. I warned my wife that it could be the end of my marriage and my job, hey maybe even a lawsuit to complete the Triple Crown. Nothing worthy of arrest, although you never know in today’s America, where they seem to find a way to put a man behind bars if they want to. My wife has promised her support. She’s stuck by me this far. Why change?

Enough! Back to vanilla Trail fodder, the stuff average readers supposedly prefer — benign subjects, easy targets, no controversy to draw irate calls or letters to the editor. So let’s return to last week’s subject of the deer leaping off the Interstate 91 Route 2 overpass in north Greenfield a couple of weekends back. Reporters tried to get the story from State Police but came up empty when barracks spokesmen went mute and directed the scribes to the mandatory state Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs screen for all media questions to bureaucrats. I can’t explain the paranoia. Can you? We’re not dealing with terrorists, assassins or space aliens here, just the simple case of a wild animal committing an unusual act that showed up on a police report. Stonewalled, the scribes were reduced to trading newsroom snipes about suicidal deer. Ha-ha.

I tried to get around the police roadblock last week by mentioning the incident here, hoping to flush out an answer. Sure enough, mission accomplished soon after the column hit the street. My Recorder phone rang quickly after my June 21 arrival. The man on the other end introduced himself as a longtime local golf-course employee, said he thought we had met but he’d rather remain anonymous. He hadn’t seen the deer, his wife had, but he was able to offer scanty detail. The tragedy occurred just before 5:46 a.m. June 17, when his wife placed her call to the police. That done, she called her husband and was so shook up that she admitted herself to the hospital. The story is that she was crossing the bridge and suddenly, out of nowhere, a deer jumped in front of her car and froze to ponder its next move. It looked one way, then another, then directly at the vehicle with an expression of, “Uh-oh. What in Sam Jesus am I doing here?” before catapulting the bridge railing in one gymnastic leap off four coordinated legs. The poor creature was obviously not expecting the 25-foot drop to the 91 pavement. The stunned woman jumped out, hurried around her vehicle and looked down at the prostrate deer lying on the highway below, likely dead or expiring. She doesn’t remember seeing movement.

The story I had heard in the newsroom later that day was that two deer had gone over the railing, which my telephone source admitted was possible even though his wife could remember only one and, though unsure, thought she may even have hit it. An animal lover, she was so distraught that the incident created memory loss and confusion that required inpatient treatment. She appeared to be coming out of her anguish by the time her husband called me at work, but he was vague about the nature of her issues, which is understandable. Who wants to air something like that out in the local paper?

Anyway, her memory was still not clear by the time I spoke to the man, we have not spoken since and I don’t intend to pester him further. He gave me what I wanted. On the surface, it appears to be a simple case of panic by an animal that ventured into a vulnerable place, got claustrophobic in the tight confines of an overpass, and made a knee-jerk decision and instinctive leap. It can happen.

OK, I guess I’ve filled my weekly allotted space. I could have filled a whole page just with the opening thought train, a lubed locomotive itching to lose its brakes down a steep mountain pass. And to think I didn’t even get to that beautiful Montague sky and the conversation it sparked at the Saturday night summer-solstice party I attended; nothing about my friend locked in jail, my reading and meadow musings. I may get to that stuff next week. No promises. Who knows? I may just answer another interesting distant phone call, take another thought-provoking walk, and flail away at this keyboard that may yet be my demise; or, at least, drive me to an autonomous sanctuary where I’m free to ramble.

It’s here, summer solstice, new moon. Beware! Things are haywire. What a loony lead-up to our longest day.

It all started Friday on my daily rounds with the dogs when — Bingo! — back of the hayfield, orchard grass standing tall, bobolinks perched on hardy weed shafts, fluttering, hovering, I saw an uncommon sight, actually not as unusual as it once was. A moose. Not big, but a moose nonetheless, standing tall and alert, looking straight at me. I stopped and backed across the road into the landowner’s driveway, where I parked, got out and walked through the breezeway to the glass kitchen door. Sure enough, both there, man and wife, him seated, her standing at the sink.

“Hey, there’s a moose on the loose in the hayfield!”

“Really?”

“Yeah, wanna see?”

He stood and they hurried outside, him yelling once outside to neighbor Mike, who wasn’t out. They reached the driveway and the lanky quadruped was trotting south. It broke into a scalped hayfield and kept trotting toward a narrow tree-line overlooking a thin riverside swale bordering cropland. I bid the couple adieu and headed back where I started. Hey, maybe it was going to descend into Sunken Meadow, great habitat, wet and getting wetter daily, aided by busy beavers. Beavers and cougars. Seems there’s been a lot of talk about them recently in this space. Not today. Risky. Don’t want some Christian conservative, the worst kind, to accuse me of cheap thrills and hidden messages. I park my truck and take a walk, no moose, no sign of it up top, either. Gone.

A couple of days later I walked into work to start a new week and, not five minutes into my shift, at my desk, a colleague I call Big Boiczek says, “Hey, I saw a moose Friday night on the way home from work, about 10:30, headed for GCC.”

“Interesting. I saw it, too, four hours earlier, a young one, just north of where you saw it.”

A news scribe overheard us, said a moose had been spotted all around Greenfield over the weekend. It was in the Greenfield police report, had somehow crossed 91 and ended up downtown Friday night, by the jail, then in many neighborhoods. Cops gave chase, came up empty. No big deal. Once akin to UFO sightings here, moose are now resident, have lived in territory south of Greenfield where I’ve hunted for many years, sign everywhere, hilltown residents along the periphery routinely spotting antlered bulls, cows with young. Something tells me we’re headed there with cougars, populations quickly expanding into the Midwest and eastward. I believe it’ll happen in my lifetime, unless I meet a sudden, untimely death, the best kind.

Do you remember when moose started showing up in these parts and the experts blamed it on a disorienting parasitic brain-worm? Well, it wasn’t any brain worm, just another historic species reappearing with the forests, like bears and wolves and bobcats and coyotes, all of them coming back with reforestation. I wonder what’s holding back the rattlesnake renaissance. Those venomous serpents were common here from the contact period well into the 19th century and seem to show up everywhere in early New England narrative. Native tribesmen used to adorn themselves with necklaces strung with rattlesnake fangs. That was during the Little Ice Age, when the Northeastern climate was colder than now. I suspect rattlesnakes will soon be back, too, not a pleasant thought for a man who does a lot of off-road, bare-legged hiking with little foot protection.

Back to the moose, though, it wasn’t the only weird weekend occurrence I bumped into. No sir. It got even better Saturday night on the Route 2 overpass in north Greenfield, where, again according to the Greenfield police report, two deer catapulted over the railing and onto Interstate 91. Scribes have had no luck hacking through annoying government-mandated information screens to confirm the tale and get further details, never easy since Gov. Mitt Romney instituted rules restricting media access to state employees. It’s frustrating for reporters chasing an interesting story on deadline or anytime. I learned long ago to ignore the irritating information roadblock. In this case, it was on the police blotter so it must have happened. Given that, and assuming the deer weren’t drunken teenage daredevils, the question is why would they leap off a 25-foot highway overpass. Coyotes, perhaps? Mountain lion? Panic in a dangerous new place, traffic buzzing by? I guess we’ll never know. Worth reporting, though; just the type of story you’ll find in newspapers hamstrung by politicians like Mr. Romney, who may yet be our next president. It wouldn’t surprise me. America deserves a leader who won’t answer questions or allow anyone associated with his government to do so, unless, of course, they have a Master’s in manipulation and deception. But enough of that, back to the animal kingdom, this time critters right around my homestead.

With all the other stuff occurring, why should I be spared at home, where over the weekend we encountered our first kitchen mouse since our April 1997 purchase. Imagine that! More than 15 years in a 200-year-old rural home and never an indoor mouse. That changed late Saturday night when my wife went to the sink and screamed bloody murder, whatever good that does. A trap works much better. But that little issue was insignificant compared to the skunk letting loose around my home for a few days, filling a few rooms with eye-watering stench. What was happening, I can’t say. But my wife called Tuesday night at work and said she had seen it out by the woodshed, fat and healthy, obviously not ill. By Wednesday afternoon, all that was left was faint scent in hot, steamy air out back. Go figure. A litter coming of age? Maybe. Who knows?

Come to think of it, the weekend presolstice weirdness was not limited to the animal kingdom. How about my Tri-Tronics electric dog collars? They’re going goofy, too. I own that are operated by one remote-control. One collar works fine, another won’t turn on, the third won’t turn off. When I put them in the charging cradle, everything seems fine. The charging light glows red and turns to green in a couple of hours when it’s supposedly fully charged. Problem is, when I remove them, they blink green and red a few times, then one keeps blinking reen, telling me it’s on, and the other will not go on even when I try pushing the button with a Phillips screwdriver. The technician I spoke to Monday told me what to do to for a home remedy. I tried. No luck. Under warranty, I mailed the two malfunctioning transmitters to Tri-Tronics’ South Research Loop in Tucson, Ariz., where they’ll be repaired or replaced and returned.

Whew! What a strange six days leading up to the summer solstice, huh? Me a Moon Child, no less. Maybe I should have just been patient and waited for the weirdness to fade. Either that or perhaps I should have thrown both of those transmitters off the Route 2 overpass and taken a flying leap along with them.

Nah. Just kidding. I wouldn’t miss this next full moon for anything. A birthday moon. Promising. It should be intense.

Nice

Pancho was a bandit boys

His horse was fast as polished steel

Wore his gun outside his pants

For all the honest world to feel.

Pancho met his match you know

On the desert down in Mexico

Nobody heard his dying words

Ah, but that’s the way it goes.

“Pancho and Lefty”

Townes Van Zandt

Mysteries everywhere — in your face and faraway. They pop into your path and vanish like scent in a windstorm. Time to ponder.

Knut Hamsun’s “Mysteries” comes to mind. Three or four times I have read it. Not recently. A fierce foe of anything average and conventional, Hamsun often explores love, loss and human frailties: joys, pains, idle thoughts, some poignant, others haunting. More than anything else, Hamsun seemed to struggle with women, no relief. He likely never solved the dilemma, a recurring caress-and-dagger theme in his work. His dissection of soul digs deep, exposing subliminal artifice in relationships, bare as raw lust and jealousy, the hatred, inner torment it can unleash. He always relates it all back to nature, the big picture, larger than man, bigger than life, no younger.

So what is it, you may ask, that tangles me into this bizarre labyrinth of morning reflection? Nothing special. Just a basic walk coupled with recent observations, occurrences. Stuff like the dwarf deer that captured my fancy and that of a friend who called, was equally perplexed by the same peculiar animal; also does and fawns; a happenstance meeting with an old friend of my late son’s down in fragrant Sunken Meadow, the sweetness overwhelming, a hidden place where I didn’t expect to find him; lastly, reading, putting it together. Mysteries, all intriguing, all connected, all meaning something; what, I cannot say for sure, except that trying to figure it out makes life interesting for those of us who like to wander and ponder. But, no, I’m not here to hang any Hamsunesque female issues out on the clothesline. I have none. But enough of that, onto the task at hand.

Let’s begin with the young man, friend of my son, fishing for trout with his two 30ish Pennsylvania pals, a handsome trio, the devil in their eyes. Fishing the Green River, one of them caught a fat 18-inch rainbow pictured on his cell phone. He released it back into the stream, free to live another day, give a different angler splashy, acrobatic thrills. I didn’t immediately recognize the first fella I spoke to, hard-pack of Viceroys cupped in his right hand. He knew me. I didn’t hear him say, “Hi, Gary.” My wife did. He identified himself to her. I remembered him well, got talking about the river, fishing, the status of Green River brown trout, then parted. His eyes told me he wanted to say something about Gary. He didn’t. My wife didn’t spare me a couple of weeks ago, out of the clear blue, no warning, Doc Watson pickin’ and grinnin’, pointed Mount Ascutney on the Vermont horizon.

“Why did they take him from us?” she gasped.

“Why did who take him?”

Pause.

“Whoever.”

A perfect answer for me; soothing, too, for her grieving soul. Why dwell on sadness? That’s my philosophy. But, yes, I do often think of him, then let it go like powder in the breeze by capturing a new thought that sets me free as that liberated rainbow. The Buddhists or Taoists or one of those Far Eastern religions compare life to a stream, ebbing and flowing, swirling and foaming, always progressing. I understand, have felt it often, learned to ride ebullient currents, gather strength in eddies, even once survived a disorienting death spiral in turbulent spring waters under the falls at a now-forbidden gorge. Lucky, I guess. Tell me I’m crazy. Wouldn’t be the first time. Only words. Crazy like a fox, a cunning cougar.

Whoa!

The deer, that little Memorial-Day-Weekend deer in the tall neighborhood hayfield. I first heard about it from a colleague who had chased it from his tender young lettuce patch. The man, working, threw dirtballs to chase it, too tame, off. The next day, his uncle encountered it near the greenhouses and shooed it away. A day later, at the start of a noontime trip to Bardwells Ferry and Conway, I saw it, too large for this year’s fawn, too small for last year’s. My buddy called later in the day, ice cubes clinking. He was confused, wanted to chat. He had seen it in the same field I had, closer to the road. He stopped to scare it back from the road, said it acted tame, no fear. A half-hour earlier, atop the hill, he had seen a similar deer, same size, no spots, never before had seen anything like it in May. An orphaned early birth? Maybe. Did I have any theories? Yeah, nature’s mysteries. What else can I say?

I have since seen two does with spring lambs, not to mention many tiny fawn tracks following the paths I’ve cut through chest-high orchard grass, timothy seed-heads finally formed. The deer must be enjoying the thick, sumptuous layer of clover underneath. These fawns look like they should, tiny and spotted, staying close to the mother. My brother-in-law in Freedom, Maine, called to say he’s already observed twin fawns nursing out the bay window of his gentleman’s farm. Does it get any better?

As for reading, well, I’m still mired in the final French & Indian War, focused on that wedge-shaped theater between the Hudson and Mohawk valleys. I blew through a four-volume study on Rogers’ Rangers, then a Jeffery, Lord Amherst, biography, now a biography of Sir William Johnson, a white man with uncanny sway over the fierce Five Nations tribesmen and their seductive women. What I find most interesting about buckskinned frontiersmen like Rogers and Johnson is their rugged independence and total disrespect for authority, particularly incompetent British regulars giving orders, men driven by ego and petty jealousies instead of sound judgment and strategy. Then you read something like Michael Hastings’ “The Last Prisoner of War” in the new Rolling Stone and realize how history keeps repeating itself. Cantankerous scribe Ambrose Bierce, himself a decorated Civil War veteran, said 100 years ago that some of our bravest, wisest warriors die by firing squad, their own. Now this: Pfc. Bowe Bergdahl, a pathetic 23-year-old Idahoan prisoner of the Taliban; he may yet meet a gruesome death for obeying his conscience. I read his tale, felt sad, admired his courage. Others are screaming “Traitor!” Bierce knew the game, hated it.

It’s funny. You don’t have to wonder how petty, incompetent officers gain rank. The mystery is how they maintain it. If seeking the truth, turn to artists, study their books, their paintings, their songs. Ridiculed as weak and soft by reactionary politicians and haughty newspaper editors, their work exhales wisdom under clear, cold skies.

I suppose some folks are born to answer Yes, sir!, wear robes at the altar, earn Eagle badges, and punch clocks all the way to the customer-service-booth crown, where their large color photo hangs in a faux-walnut frame over shiny, polished floors. Others resist authority, cut their own trail and may or may not find success. These days, the odds are against them. They’re more apt to find suffering, may even perish in stinking, shallow shame kicked upon them by wing-tipped guardians of freedom, liberty, justice and a thing called status quo.

No mystery there, ma’am, threadbare fact.

The orchard grass is in places chest-high, with fragrant pink weigela bushes in bloom, turkey season winding down and shad running like gangbusters leading up to Memorial Day Weekend.

I just discovered that the annual Fort No. 4 reenactment in Charlestown, N.H., is next weekend. Can’t wait. I think I’ll take both grandsons this time. Young Arie, approaching 3, should be all eyes, viewing soldiers, suttlers and feather-adorned native tribesmen. But enough of that, onto this week’s task at hand, again a little of this, a little of that. Next thing you know, another column in the rearview. Then it’ll be off to yard-work, reading, writing or all of the above; life at the old tavern, no complaints.

First, a correction. The hydroseeding landscaper I mentioned last week was Steve Wiggan, not Higgins. I’m very sorry for the careless mistake.

Moving on, old pal Richie Kellogg — The Big R — called Wednesday morning from Wendell. The big man says he’s taken up reading, finds it enjoyable and thanked me for planting the seed. I warned him it could get contagious, jumping from one related topic to another. I just hope he doesn’t, along the way, bump into Capt. Martin Kellogg of old Deerfield fame. An interesting 17th and early 18th century frontiersman, Capt. Kellogg knew the northern New England woods and native inhabitants like no other. He’s fascinating, especially when his blood is traveling through your veins. Sorry, Big Guy, had to mention him, presumably a long-lost cousin at the very least, potentially a source of great personal pride.

Speaking of reading, just this past weekend, eating homemade spaghetti and meatballs by the window in our little kitchen alcove, grandson Jordi, 6, and I were talking about Indians, a subject that fascinates the boy. He was curious whether Indians were good or bad and I tried to help, telling him that reading and exploring would lead him to the answer. Had I believed all the mainstream stuff I saw about Indians as a kid, I’d believe they were bloodthirsty savages, white men good. But because I have read, I told him, I know that wasn’t the case. Often times, Indians were better human beings than the people slaughtering their women and children in nighttime raids. I then told him of the gold, silver and jewels discovered by Spaniards in the sophisticated 16th century Inca and Aztec cities, how those indigenous South and Central Americans were soon demonized and slaughtered for their riches. It’s all about greed, I told him, and things haven’t changed much in 500 years. Now it’s about oil and plutonium and uranium and other valuable natural resources, including gems and precious metals.

The fascination on that boy’s face during our brief discussion made every millisecond worthwhile. I later asked my wife if she had seen the look on his face, those pensive eyes, during our little heart-to-heart. She didn’t miss it, said you can’t overvalue such conversations with a young kid. Yeah, yeah, I know the red, white and blue sheeple waving their Memorial Day flags and Francis Parkman history books will beg to differ with my interpretation. So be it. Give me Francis Jennings or Howard Zinn any day. I believe their theses, not those of Parkman, the son of a Boston preacher man who wrote glorious, patriotic American history during the second half of the 19th century. But, anyway, back to fish and fauna. Why traipse into controversial subjects that might stir things up?

Don’t look now but the shad are running like they haven’t run in years. So get out those fishing rods, fellas, if you haven’t already done so. Now’s the time. On Tuesday, Darleen Cutting from the Connecticut River Coordinator’s office in Sunderland was gushing with enthusiasm about the shad run as the Connecticut River jumped over the 60-degree-Fahrenheit level.

“Holyoke was crazy busy (Monday),” she wrote in her daily report. “We need to lift 10,200 shad (Tuesday) to equal last year’s total.”

Well, guess what? Nearly 42,000 shad passed Holyoke Tuesday, bringing the total there to 275,000-plus. By now we’re likely way past our first run of 300,000 through that station in 10 years. The last time was in 2002, when the Barrett Fishlift handled 370,000. What gives? Well, nearly perfect river conditions, no flooding, and optimal late-season water temperatures of 61.7 Tuesday. It’ll be interesting to see what happens over the next couple of weeks. Hey, maybe we’ll even see a half-million, although I admit that’s probably wishful thinking.

Sadly, the favorable river conditions aren’t yet having similar positive effects on Atlantic-salmon migration. Through Tuesday, only 22 salmon had been counted in the river system, the lion’s share caught and captured at Holyoke (13). The rest have been captured at Connecticut’s Leesville (5) and Rainbow (3) dams. Another lonely, random salmon obviously turned up someplace else that isn’t identified. Thus far, three salmon have been released to spawn naturally in the river system above Holyoke. None have yet passed Turners Falls, where the shad traffic is, as usual, pathetic. The fish-passage issues here in our neighborhood could be addressed and soon corrected with the FERC relicensing process quickly approaching for upriver dams. But don’t hold your breath waiting for something significant to occur. It’s unlikely there will be a concerted effort aimed at forcing the power companies to improve their dams’ upper-Connecticut River fish-passage efficiency. Why, you ask? Well, for one reason, there will be no smooth “activists” who graduated from elite colleges applying constant, vociferous pressure to get what they want at public hearings. Fact is, there’s no whitewater potential on the Connecticut River, thus no economic pressure, just power companies crying poor-mouth. Oh well, what else is new? Is it a secret that money talks and ecological altruists sink to the bottom and suffocate in black, tritium-laced sediment? Not in my world.

As for the last week of trout stocking here in Franklin County, well, there’s primarily a lake-and-pond emphasis, with stocking crews ticketed for North Pond in Florida, Cranberry Pond in Sunderland, Laurel Lake in Erving, and Lake Wyola in Shutesbury. Other than that, it’s one last run to the upper Deerfield River and maybe a lesser surplus stocking here and there next week.

That’s all I’ve got this week. Off I go

A wet, sticky week. Nesting season. Signs everywhere.

Just this morning, Wednesday, on our daily romp, the dogs and I bumped into an average-sized snapping turtle of the most ornery countenance in a shallow puddle not far from a beaver pond. Chubby found it, knew better, barked and kept his distance. Lily really didn’t bother with it. What amazes me is that neither dog has earned any kind of diploma certifying their ability to process such decisions. Once I knew it was a snapper, my only words were, “Leave it!” They listened.

I had been greeted the previous morning by a pair of red-winged blackbirds performing a magical midair love dance as I drove through the hayfields on a double-rutted trail carved out by tires, greenhouses to the left, flat-picker Norman Blake singing his doleful ballad “Green Light on the Southern,” playing loud, of course, in my truck. Ah, yes, that time of year, the way it’s meant to be, the drab female feigning fear and appearing quite indignant — yeah, right! — as the colorful male rode high tide in hot pursuit, repeatedly colliding softly in erratic flight. Wouldn’t it be nice free as a bird, living by nature’s laws instead of those written and enforced by wolves in sheep’s clothing, that suckling, law-and-order flock committed to protecting your liberty and mine? Well, that is if you’re on their side. Otherwise, forget it, they’ll deny your freedom in a jiffy to the throng’s delight. Those mating, nesting birds fear no uniformed enforcers, just live by natural law, right and just, which cannot always be said of the laws enacted by courts, legislators and — horrors! — special wartime commissions. Our founding fathers knew this better than we do, at least those who called themselves old revolutionaries, later Anti-Federalists. But these patriots were defeated and so were we when the bankers and businessmen grabbed the reins, still no end in sight.

Enough of that, though, back to nesting season, glorious indeed. I suppose there are times when all of us fantasize we are wild field birds fluttering in ecstasy over rich, fertile meadows, be they high or low or somewhere in between. The other day, down on the lower piece I call Sunken Meadow, bordered by a swollen Green River flowing with robust springtime passion, virility and a certain dignity, I found a robin’s nest tucked head-high between two branches protruding from the thorny shaft of a seven-foot Christmas tree. The nesting hen must hear me approaching daily from a distance, the telltale sounds of my whistle, silly dog chatter or whatever preparing her for my impending intrusion. When I get within five feet, where I could literally spit into the nest were it not protected by dense needled branches, that angry, noisy hen bursts into flight and flitters north, hovering low and loud, scolding me and the dogs, both flush-and-retrieve Springers in hot pursuit, alert, half-docked tails wiggling, absolutely no chance of catching their fascination. The chase provides me just enough time to check the nest of four pretty, colonial-blue eggs, the color of a priceless old cobbler’s chest or Queen Anne pipe box. I intend to check that nest daily. Who knows? I may even photograph it and its inevitable hatchlings, either to illustrate this space or maybe for an email enticement to dear grandson Jordi, better than two hours north in Vermont ski country. If he visits, I’ll tell him we can’t handle the nestlings. Why stress-out the mom? He’ll understand.

Meanwhile, the folks atop the hill behind my home say they’ve already seen hen turkeys with broods, very early for such a sight. I can’t say I doubt it. It’s been an early spring, at least three weeks by my calculations. This rain and humidity popped my bridal-wreath bushes into full bloom, typically a June 10 occurrence, according to my wife. She’d know. She tracks those bushes, claims our yard is never more beautiful than when they’re in bloom. To me, those delicate white flowers indicate something else entirely: that is, strawberry season. Yes, native strawberries, always a sweet, salubrious treat with morning cereal, hot or cold. First rhubarb, which came weeks ago, again early, then strawberries, blueberry blossoms signaling another tasty treat is near, along with raspberries. Yum. I love walking out into the morning sun with a bowl of cereal and dropping fresh berries on top before returning inside for almond, oat or soy milk, a new twist for me, but delicious, especially the vanilla-sweetened variety, better than skimmed milk any day.

It seemed this soggy week that I could hear the grass growing, even when returning home from work in the dark of night. The rain did wonders for a little project out front by the flagpole, on the island of lawn surrounded by the driveway. It was getting quite ratty looking, bare spots front and center in spring before crabgrass covered them, then again in the fall, after frost killed the crabgrass. I have tried unsuccessfully to solve the problem without help but finally surrendered. They don’t give away grass seed, you know, and my attempts failed. So this year I decided to bring in Steve Higgins of “Higgins Hydroseed.” I had seen his ads in The Recorder, passed his work along the road for many years, was impressed with the quick results. I finally decided to give him a call, got an estimate and hired him for the little job. It appears to me that his visit and my own subsequent “GrubEx” application has solved the problem. Good news. One more project in the rearview, many others remaining, more than I want to think about. In fact, old pal Mike Denehy is expected today or Friday, promised he’d arrive once the weather clears to repair a woodshed roof. Ah for the joys of home ownership. But what are the alternatives? Nothing that interests me at the present time. You just gotta grin and bear it, I guess, and find the money somewhere.

Before my refreshing walk this morning, sitting on the La-Z-Boy reading a tedious novel I will not finish, I discovered that supper would be my responsibility, nothing new or annoying. I enjoy cooking. Working odd hours for most of my married life, I typically had the evening meal on the table for my 9-to-5 spouse when the kids were home. So when I asked from that La-Z-Boy if she had anything planned for supper and she just gave me that vacant look and said, “Um, how about fish?” I got the message. I’d go to Foster’s and pick something up, as well as the salad stuff she said we were “getting low on.” So  Foster’s it was. Consider it done, I promised. Foster’s has a good feel, local economy, right up my alley. Truthfully, I wish someone would firebomb those big-box stores of Ronald Reagan’s America. Talk about eliminating too-big-to-fail enterprises, nothing was big enough for old Ronnie Ray Gun, a pejorative nickname coined in the Sixties. Yup, in came the Republican saint, a B-rated Hollywood showman, and out went the local economy I grew up with — no more small pharmacies, hardware stores, restaurants, meat markets, and gun and tackle shops owned by the kid next door’s father. No sir. Now we must shop at Walmart and Walgreens, Home Depot and Dick’s, eat at the 99 or Chili’s, Ponderosa or Applebee’s, with their glossy, colorful menus filled with the best meat, fish and veggies money can buy, bagged and freeze-dried in Texas or Kansas or Missouri, where they grease the slaughterhouse inspectors’ palms for turning a blind eye to floor and butcher-block filth. Those places gag me. At Foster’s, I picked up a big swordfish steak, an equal mix of six small summer squash and zucchini, three packets of hot peppers, three types of salad greens, hothouse tomatoes on the vine, one bunch of native asparagus, and two fat-free salad dressings. Cha-ching, $50.77, expensive to eat healthy these days.

When I got home, I figured I’d prepare everything before sitting down to finish this column. That way I could just throw it in the oven around 4:30. Not surprisingly, it started bad. First of all, the sink was clogged with dirty pans, dishes and silverware, making the garbage disposal totally inaccessible and telling me the dishwasher likely needed emptying. I opened it to check and, oh yeah, full of sparkling pans, dishes, Tupperware containers, and silverware. Twenty-eight minutes later, I had everything put away, the sink emptied, the counter spic and span, the vegetables sliced and jammed over the swordfish steak in a covered Griswold chicken frier, a tiny dab of coconut oil on the skillet floor under the fish. I squished the pan onto a refrigerator shelf, ready for later transference into a preheated 425-degree oven for approximately 45 minutes. Try it sometime. It’s easy and delicious; healthy and spicy, too. If you want noodles or rice with it, that’s fine, but I’ve learned to do without. You can’t beat those old self-basting cast-iron skillet covers, literally worth their weight in gold, keeping whatever you’re cooking moist and tender, even pan-fried steaks or chops. Check the price sometime. I went looking on eBay for a cover to fit my circa-1920, No. 14 Wagner skillet and found only one available. The damage? Four hundred bucks. I was tempted but didn’t bite. I’ll find one cheaper. Trust me. Patience is a virtue.

But, getting back to turkey hunting, my buddy stopped by to chat briefly Friday on his way out. It was too late for me, a devoted crack-of-dawn man, but this guy is no clock-puncher, bless his independent soul. He knocked on my porch door at 9:30 a.m. and wanted to talk before setting up in a popular spot atop the hill that’s familiar to both of us. He’s informed me before and reiterated in an almost scolding tone that a man doesn’t have to rise early to kill a turkey. A mutual friend told him he shoots most of his turkeys after 10 o’clock. “Fine,” I thought, “you and he can have it. I love the predawn woods and streams, as close to the altar as I get.” But chew on this for a moment: A couple of hours later, the man was back in my driveway showing me his dead 16-pound jake. The bird was one of five yearling gobblers that had come in at just before the noon deadline. He “took care of business.” His words, not mine. Which reminds me: I’m getting nervous about my prediction that this will be a record season, our second spring harvest of 3,000 or more. I’ve changed my opinion. The weather hasn’t cooperated. I think it’s been too rainy to attract the necessary hunter pool for a record kill. But you never know. From my observations following our mild, snowless winter, there are more turkeys out and about than ever. Just Tuesday morning, again after 10, my buddy went to a spot that gets a lot of hunting pressure and immediately spotted a monster tom from the dirt road. He drove up a farm trail right past the long-beard, set up above it and immediately got another tom gobbling behind him. He didn’t kill that lusty tom but was able to lure him to within 75 yards before he turned stubborn and demanded the caller come to him. So, we’ll see what happens with the harvest. There’s a week left and hunters could indeed kill more than 3,000 for the second time in the modern era. I can’t say I’m still expecting it, but I won’t be surprised.

Oh yeah, before I go, a quick trout-stocking and anadromous-fish report, both annual events nearing their end. Memorial Day always signals the conclusion of spring trout-stocking season. Well, the upper and lower Deerfield River and the Millers River are due for stocking this week, along with the Green River through Leyden, Colrain and Greenfield. The Western District did Clesson Brook in Ashfield last week and expects to hit Ashfield Lake for the second straight week. Other local lakes and ponds ticketed for fish this week include Upper Highland Lake in Goshen, Lake Mattawa in Orange, Lake Wyola in Shutesbury, and Forestry Camp Pond in Warwick. As for the shad and salmon spawning runs, with Connecticut River temperatures holding at below 60 degrees Fahrenheit, 121,000 American shad and 15 Atlantic salmon have thus far been counted in the river system. The runs should pick up when the temperatures rise above 60, then slow down to a trickle at around 70. Who knows what to expect? Safe to say it won’t be anything extraordinary. Sad but true. Don’t blame global warming, though. ExxonMobile execs and Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe say there’s more research needed on that topic. Fools actually believe them.

Whew! That’s all I’ve got this week, and I didn’t even get to French pacifist Jean Giono and that novel, “The Straw Man,” I got some 300 pages into before surrendering, bored silly. The writing was good, the plot weak. Maybe I’ll touch upon that work another day. That and surveillance, which has me stirred up these days. It seems the “silent majority” thinks Smart Meters on our homes, and tiny cameras on telephone poles, traffic lights and city buildings are OK in the name of “national security.” Not me. I find it disturbing to see how many satellites are peering down at me every time I turn on my hand-held, DeLorme GPS unit. I bought the handy little gadget for hunting and discovered that I am the hunted.

Visionary Englishman George Orwell, a fascism foe, saw it coming. Now it’s here in our cradle of liberty. Yes, Big Brother is watching, and he may just find those ornithological, midair, meadow dancers to be morally unsettling.

As to how much is too much freedom, it all depends on the judge, frightening.

Steamy and sticky it was for our Wednesday-morning walk, the dogs now kenneled and my brow still perspiring from the romp around Sunken Meadow, where we caught the sights, the sounds, the scents, the sweet smell of spring overwhelming, four interesting mushrooms, large and showy, sprouted along the fallen trunk of a chestnut oak. I just know those “shrooms” are edible, even paged through my Audubon Society reference book to check before frustration set in and forced a quick retreat. I’ll figure it out another time when I have more patience, no pressing tasks at hand.

Actually, I almost sat down Tuesday to get a jump on this familiar weekly chore but decided against it. I had just completed a power-reading session — stuff like Socrates’ trial, the religious climate of our colonial Connecticut Valley, then Joan Didion and, horrors, even psychedelic guru Timothy Leary again, dangerous indeed. Yup, he’s back in my gourd. How did I ever allow that to happen? Just curious, I guess, always curious. My downfall. My salvation.

But let’s not go there. It was those Didion essays that dissuaded me from sitting down a day early. I didn’t want to get carried away and start shooting from the hip at my usual targets, having just finished the woman’s critique of NYC culture, in general, in particular, the buzz surrounding that infamous 1989 Central Park rape and mugging of a woman jogger who captured national attention. Didion hasn’t changed much since I was introduced to her by late, great UMass professor Howard Ziff, who assigned several essays from “Slouching Toward Bethlehem.” She was then confrontational in a mellow, West Coast, at times humorous way, and still is. I picked up a recycled collection of her essays, “Vintage Didion,” Saturday afternoon at the Montague Bookmill, which I do enjoy visiting from time to time, when in the mood, typically on midafternoon whims toward the end of the week. The place draws an eclectic crowd, especially on sunny weekends. I went there looking for something by David Foster Wallace, preferably a book of essays, short stuff to read at my leisure. When my search failed, I settled for Didion, not a bad thing.

I almost bought “The Last Colonial Massacre,” about a bloodbath in the not too distant Guatemalan past. What intrigued me was the book’s dense index listing for former president Jorge Ubico, the father-in-law of my sister-in-law who married her high-school sweetheart, a long, lean Georgetown basketball player, then a Guatemalan man of royal pedigree. She still runs a mountain mission for orphaned children there, in a peaceful spot overlooking primeval rain forest. Widowed years ago, her former husband and his brother were long ago murdered on separate occasions in different countries by police. Quite a place, Central America. If you don’t believe me, read Didion. She captures the terror. My sister-in-law knows it well. Likely fearing for her safety, she solved the problem by marrying the banana republic’s retired Minister of Intelligence, 20 years her junior. Hey, whatever it takes, I guess. I may still buy that book. It’ll probably be there next time I visit. I have always wanted to know more about those Ubicos — who they were and what they stood for — but have been unable to pry much useful information loose from Judy. Maybe it’s “classified,” or maybe she just doesn’t know. I’ll get to the bottom of it. Trust me.

Enough Central American intrigue, though, back to Didion and her essay, “Sentimental Journeys.” An indictment of NYC, its cops, DAs, newspapers, politicians, talk shows, you name it, Hurricane Joan demolishes them all. But that’s just one essay. There are others, including one about the shallow Reagan White House, another about misunderstood Patty Hearst, then stuff on 9/11, the Clinton Inquisition, San Salvador, Miami’s Cuban-exile community, none of it cream of wheat, believe me, entertaining. I guess some news editors think people want a nice blend of tidy little tales and cutesy crap about positive subjects and heartwarming success stories. Not me. I want insightful writing with a venomous bite like Didion, who goes straight for the jugular while giggling at the absurdity of it all, infuriating absurdities no less. Stirred up, I resisted the temptation to sit down and start writing Tuesday but must confess the air still hasn’t cleared. Let’s just say the Didion influence lingers, is just sitting here suspended in a web of stuffy gray air that has left me and my brow damp from that half-hour walk.

Not much of interest to report down in the meadow, though, other than a quick follow-up on that hen turkey Chubby flushed for my grandson; also turtles, these painted, again nesting early, I suspect. One reason I own the type of dogs I do is that on country walks they sharpen my eyes, ears and nose, big time, alerting me to the presence of many critters I would otherwise miss. Chubby has flushed that hen turkey twice more from the same location since I last wrote about it, and he likely would have repeated the maneuver many more times had I not intentionally skirted what I suspect to be a nesting site. Why disturb it? That’s my thinking. But we did bump into that hen on the upper level Monday, when Chub-Chub, fired-up, didn’t hesitate to trail and flush her across the Green River. By now it’s just a silly little game for, as they say in Hatfield, “da-bode-uv-em,” which has a familiar ring to it, sorta like my old hometown of “Sow-deer-feel.”

As for the painted turtles, well, again, I would have never noticed them had it not been for the dogs, first Lily, then Chubby-Chub, different shelled creatures, large for painted turtles, about the same size, maybe 120 yards apart, concealed amid tangles of flood-deposited brush along the Green River. Seems a little early for egg-laying, so they must now be establishing nests. Last year, two or three weeks later than this, I ran into a big snapper in the same area, far away from water, and wondered in print if it wasn’t too early for nesting. A neighboring farmer chimed in to say he was accustomed to seeing turtles in his fields in mid- June, which made sense to me. The man would know, has crops to associate the occurrence of natural phenomena with. This year, everything is running three weeks ahead of schedule, bridal wreath blossoms ready to pop any day, so why should turtles be any different? I discovered them with my own two eyes and have since found them a few more times, right in the same location, would have never seen them had the dogs not approached them cautiously, heads high, scent pulling them in slowly. Apparently, instinct tells a dog to be careful around turtles; snakes, too, which I have noticed them approach in a similar shy manner, kinda like I used to slither toward 2 a.m. frat-house ladies sitting with inviting eyes at the bar. Yeah, right! Why even go there?

Speaking of which, the wetlands bordering where I daily walk are alive with the happy sounds of springtime birds, all sorts of them singing in dynamic harmony, living out their springtime fantasies while building nests and starting families, if you know what I mean. Don’t believe for a minute that those birds are true-blue lifetime mates. That’s a silly Christian myth, one to keep the rest of us in line. Just Wednesday morning I watched an angry cuckold chasing off some sneaky little devil. The scene had infidelity written all over it. My guess is that it’s nature’s way mixing the gene pool to assure healthy, hardy species. It created quite a commotion, though, laced with vicious fury. Who says it only happens in Hollywood?

You know, I think if I really wanted to shoot myself a spring gobbler, I could do so down there near that hen’s nest I’ve located. Maybe if grandson Jordi was in town I’d take him down there, if not to kill a bird, then just to sit there at first light and listen to the gobbles, watch the spellbinding mating ritual unfold. The kid would love it, and it makes sense that, with hens in the field, there are gobblers nearby. Given what I know from experience, I can’t imagine it would be difficult to make things happen, hunting, down there. But it’s just not that important to me, unless, of course, Jordi was with me. Then I might just deprive myself of sleep. Otherwise, forget it. Been there, done that. I have nothing to prove. Hunting is relaxation to me, not competition, and I don’t need the meat.

Anadromous fish are still migrating up the valley, albeit slowly, with Connecticut River water temperatures stalled by recent rain at 50 degrees Fahrenheit. The run picks up in intensity when the temps climb into the 60s. But, still, the river system has thus far attracted 100,000 American shad and 10 Atlantic salmon, not bad for this time of year. As for trout-stocking, well, I didn’t hear from the Western District this week but did get an email from Barb Bourque at the Valley District. On her list was the lower Deerfield River, the Millers River, Colrain’s North River, Lake Mattawa and Cranberry Pond.

Oh yeah, one more unusual item before I flee: an unusual request from dear old buddy “Pres,” who’s putting together a time capsule for the 16th birthday of his business associate’s newborn son, Tiago Bohl Von Kries. In 2028, the boy will open a package containing the signed copy of Jim Bouton’s “Ball Four,” a photo of Pres and his dog, a couple of signed baseballs and a copy of  a spring 2012 “Recorder” with a personal message from me in a column. Not my idea, Mr. Pres’. So, Kid, here it is:

Happy 16th birthday, Tiago, from an old, irascible scribe and longtime pal of Mr. Pres. We’ll probably never meet, son, but hopefully, unlike my good friend, you’ll know when to hang up your bat and glove.

Sorry, Mr. Pres, but you just had to know what you were getting yourself into when asking a favor of the devil’s disciple, always capable of a little spontaneous mischief.

By the way, not that it really maters, but, is it unprofessional, inappropriate to have a little fun in print? Oh well, too late now.