The huge, white half-moon dominating the southwestern sky Tuesday night got me pondering, as prominent moons often do. This one to me suggested a mouth agape, half opened in astonishment at what has transpired over the past month. First Irene, then this surreal winter snowstorm that visited us last weekend, two months before winter. What gives? That’s what I keep asking myself.

The remnants of the flood and storm scream at me as I travel the Franklin/Hampshire highways and byways, often nowadays, since pheasant season opened, driving me into my most active six weeks of the year. It feels great to be out and about, gathering it all in as I traipse through marshes and bull through thorny tangles behind gung-ho gun dogs. I see where WMass Electric called the snowstorm its worst on record, and who could doubt it after viewing the roadside devastation? But the salient question in my mind is: Why? I can’t say I believe it’s just one of those things that occurs naturally from time to time. Not when the frequency increases like it has. I see it as Mother Earth’s violent reaction to abuse the industrial world has subjected her to, the sinful pollution of the planet. The signs are everywhere, if you care to look. Most would rather bury their heads in the sand and check their 401Ks.

Let’s start with the beech tree that captured my fancy this past summer, the one I passed daily and observed carefully as its nuts formed and grew to maturity. I walked past that tree early during the fateful Saturday snowstorm, then again on Monday, when I discovered it had suffered significant damage. It’s most important leader from my perspective was snapped off and lying lifeless on the ground. Occurrences like that sometimes get me wondering where we all fit into the big picture. Was it just a coincidence that the massive low branch sagging down and reaching out with hundreds of accessible thorny nuts was taken? Who knows? But it’s a fact that I will not in the future be able to study the nuts before they hit the ground, by then too late because many are hollow. After finally discovering a bottomland beech perfect for field study, the single most important element is suddenly ripped from my little world by the same force that created it. The hefty branch, one that had reinvigorated my longtime interest in beechnuts, especially the many hollow nuts I have typically found on the ground, just disappeared overnight. I felt like nature had intentionally introduced me to that tree, given me a quick, insightful glimpse and — Bingo! — it was removed from that close, convenient location, a peaceful place off the beaten path. Why that tree? That’s what troubled me.

I am surprised by the damage to healthy trees like that, massive trees which, still bearing leaves, couldn’t support the weight of wet snow. I lost similar large limbs in my own yard; one the thickest, lowest surviving leader on a naked sugar maple; the other a thick lower limb on what some have called the largest tulip magnolia in Greenfield, still to this day sporting its green leaves with eight or 10 fewer branches. Nature pruned it. Blue Sky will stop by with his chipper for cleanup. By the time of buds and bloom, I expect both trees will be just fine. But how about all those perfectly healthy oaks on the side of the road, tall and straight and strong, yet snapped in half? Also others, even bigger, often double oaks, uprooted and lying prostrate. One such tree on a steep side hill opposite a favorite pheasant covert of mine fell across the road and totally covered a small earthen parking space that takes two vehicles. Someone cleared the road and pulled the logs aside, allowing cars the pass, but the tangled mess in the makeshift parking space is not inviting, dangerous wires pinned to the ground between telephone poles. You would think a big, sturdy twin oak like that could survive a heavy storm. Not so, and it may be some time before that mess is gone. Low priority. The people living near it, and others bordering a larger covert I hunted on the other side of the Connecticut River were still without power Tuesday afternoon, out in their yards to soak up the sun, likely not an uncommon sight in the valley. Nature’s fury brought them out, and it has plenty to be furious about.

Think of our maples, which displayed muted fall colors at best, and no brilliant orange before prematurely shedding their leaves. Suppose they had enjoyed a typical year and still wore their leaves for the storm. How many of them would be lying flat, badly broken or split in half? But, no, the Irene rain seemed to drown them, causing their leaves to dry up and fall early, in the long run saving them. Again, nature’s way. Yet those same rains saturated the landscape, flooded the streams and ultimately contributed to the uprooted oaks and apples. What a strange couple of months it’s been, and I must say I’m suspicious.

Yes, I can’t help but think about that Gulf of Mexico, deep-water-oil-spill disaster — you know, the one the mainstream media assures us left little or no long-term damage; and I can’t get that hideous Fukushima catastrophe out of my mind, either, volumes of harmful radiation belched and vomited into the sea and sky. Could it be that those events contributed to the weird weather events we’ve experienced since the end of August? Tell me I’m crazy, but it makes perfect sense to me, no matter what the spinmeisters paid by Exxon Mobile, BP and the pro-Nuclear-power crowd tell you on the nightly news. When I think of those dreadful poisons that polluted our planet on top of the industrial and transportation pollution released daily worldwide, I consider the disruptions that would typically occur in a human body exposed to similar poisoning. It wouldn’t be pretty. Then I see the tsunamis, the hurricanes, the wild fires, and the two-foot snowstorms two months before winter, and it makes me wonder if Mother Earth’s digestive system isn’t erupting from human-contamination overload. Which reminds me: there must be people monitoring the post-Fukushima radiation levels in our rains and snows. Why aren’t they being published? Must be they’re not pretty. Those in the know must figure people are better off in the dark.

Yeah, I know, I must sound to some as in need of a comfy couch in a sterile office where I can speak to a compassionate man in a bright white suit. Yup, that’s what the apologists will tell you: that I’m loony. Then again, maybe I’m just using common sense to understand weather events that make no sense at all. The naked truth is that humanity can be linked to natural disasters. Well, that is unless you believe in Adam and Eve, Noah’s ark, immaculate conceptions and resurrections. Then, I suppose, you can be convinced of just about anything thrown your way by well-paid propagandists employed by the greedy “One Percenters,” who pollute the earth and pay handsomely to pollute the minds of the masses. When trained scientists study the problems and propose solutions, they’re harangued on Fox-News as effete, intellectual snobs and elitists. Sadly, people listen.

There are signs that the tide could be changing. I sure hope so, before it’s too late.

I’m assuming pheasant season opened with a bang Saturday. I wasn’t there to witness it. Why buck opening-day crowds? That’s my motto. Crowded coverts are not for me.

But I’m not here to chat about hunting today. We have other issues, ones I pushed onto the backburner last week after learning of an old Whately friend’s sudden and untimely death. So now it’s back to that mountain biker’s Northfield Mountain cougar sighting reported here, then a little more on the Deerfield River dams, which may or may not have contributed to and/or been capable of avoiding millions of dollars of damage along the 73-mile, power-generating river that runs from Somerset, Vt., to Old Deerfield.

But let’s begin with the follow-up on that early-September cougar sighting by Jeff Mias from Worcester. It appears that times have changed at MassWildlife after that wild Western cougar was killed on a Connecticut highway in June. Apparently, our state wildlife officials are no longer turning a deaf ear to sightings like Mias’.

I received an Oct. 4 email from Mias that started lightheartedly by debunking my speculation that, if reported to the authorities, they would likely dismiss his sighting as a misidentification or an LSD flashback. “Well,” he wrote, “the folks at MassWildlife didn’t tell me I saw an orange tabby housecat hunting chipmunks, yet!!!” Instead, his emailed report drew an appropriate response from a woman at MassWildlife headquarters in Westborough. Her response was:

“It would be very helpful to get a description of the animal you saw. Size is important. Tell us if the animal was the size of a familiar breed of dog (i.e. sheltie, border collie, German Shepard), color of fur, distinctive markings, length of tail, shape of face. These too are important for us.”

Mias was more than happy to cooperate, promptly responding with a detailed written description of what he saw that day:

“Thanks for the response. I’m most familiar with the German shepherd, so I’ll equate it to that. When I saw it, the mountain lion was at a slight crouch with the head and back level. It was clearly tracking something. In a crouch, it was probably as tall as a full-grown German shepherd. I suspect that if it were upright, it would have been slightly taller. This thing was huge. Its length was much, much longer than a German shepherd, that’s for sure! It was certainly not a smaller bobcat or fisher cat.

“The tail was down and long, kind of like the letter U. The head was quite large and round, with a short, round snout. There wasn’t a long nose on it like a Shepherd or even a wolf. It was definitely a large feline face, as opposed to canine. I don’t remember anything about the ears. There were no distinctive markings or multiple fur colors whatsoever. It was all one color, kind of a grayish, darker color. I assumed mountain lions have a lighter brown coat, so this part confuses me a little.

“Lastly, I remember the legs seemed very large, too, not in height but diameter. It was walking and the thighs seemed enormous to me. The trail I was on is pretty wide, 15 feet at least, so the sighting was only a matter of maybe six or seven seconds as it walked across the trail from right to my left.
“Any other questions, please feel free to ask. I’ll do my best. My heart still races when I think about it!”

Think about it: Would a man really go to those lengths to embellish a wild, publicity-seeking hoax? Not likely in my mind. But that’s just me. Opinions vary.

Enough of that, though! On to the Deerfield dams, all 10 of them controlled by a power company named TransCanada. The first three are located in Vermont, but the remaining seven are right here in western Franklin County.

Curious about the water-release protocol before and during high-volume rain events such as Irene, I queried a staff attorney for the Vermont Public Service Board, which oversees the state’s power-generating dams. The attorney was more than helpful and, upon request, promptly emailed me a grid listing Vermont dams, their reservoir capacities, hazard ratings and other information. All three Vermont dams on the Deerfield are rated “high hazard,” which doesn’t mean they’re physically weak or compromised, just that a dam-break would lead to significant loss of life and property, not a comforting thought.

The lawyer was forthcoming with information on Oct. 3, when we went back and forth in a rapid-fire, instant-messaging-like email exchange about the dams, including my question as to where I could get a list of the Massachusetts dams along the Deerfield. All his answers were quick and helpful, but when I asked if there was a public record of daily water releases, he had no answer, just this:

“I know of no public listing of water releases. I do know the owners of dams walk a line between planning ahead for public safety, maximizing generation, and maintaining proper water levels for fish and wildlife, but I don’t know how to get access to records to see just how they are performing that balancing act. My impression from my limited contacts with the TransCanada people is that they take all three missions very seriously, but their dams are not actually under the jurisdiction of the Vermont Public Service Board except in extremely limited ways.”

Hmmmmm? A power company can use a valuable public resource like the Deerfield for private gain, yet no public records? How could that be? Doesn’t that leave TransCanada unaccountable following a devastating flood that could have been impacted by bad decisions made under duress by people affecting the river flow? I was hoping a record of historical releases would be revealing about how the dams handle their releases during high-water events. I was also interested in pre-Irene reservoir releases compared the other periods of high water over the years. No such luck.

Like I suspected from the start and have suggested here more than once, it will likely take an act of Congress or a court order to pry those Irene records free. And do you know what? It may yet happen if riverside property owners who had no flood insurance file a lawsuit, as rumored, to try to recoup losses from the power company, if culpable.

The Aug. 27 and Aug. 28 dam records should be released and reviewed, if for no other reason than to be prepared for the next dangerous tropical storm. Like a Whately octogenarian told me just Monday in his pasture, “It seems like we’re getting those 300-year storms every other year nowadays.” So, given that, isn’t it likely we’ll be facing more serious flooding in the near future?

I suspect we haven’t heard the end of this. Not by a long shot. I keep hearing rumors that may have legs down around Stillwater, The Bars and Old Deerfield. Although I haven’t been up in Shelburne Falls, I suspect there’s talk there, too.

Stay tuned. It could get interesting, contentious and, yes, even ugly.

The natives are restless.

A familiar landscape it was, viewed from a new vista, flavored by a soft southern breeze that helped inflate a solemn affair with a touch of charm. Old friend Dave Scott, ninth-generation farmer on a proud Whately spread — that alone worthy of tribute — was being laid to rest at a place of his choosing: a secluded knoll on acreage he and his family have called home for parts of four centuries. We should all be so fortunate.

The Sunday afternoon air was hot, the pasture a vibrant autumn green, the view beneath infinite blue skies simply breathtaking. At the base of the hill to the left stood two or three ancient oaks, their muscular limbs reaching with clenched fists to the sunny heavens. Behind them, on the eastern horizon, stood the Sugarloafs, north and south, my childhood playmates, backed by the dense Toby range, that too once a mischievous youthful destination. To the right of Mount Sugarloaf and across the hidden Connecticut River stood the top third of the Sunderland steeple, poking like a slim white wedge through rich green tree cover displaying faint hints of fall. As I stood in somber respect, eyes wandering as the minister read Scripture, Scott family seated on hay bales up front, I remember thinking a man couldn’t find a better spot for his final resting place.

Scottie was my old high school teammate and friend. He died suddenly, after lunch Oct. 5, working at the woodpile below. We had spoken often there, sadly will not speak again. They say he expired before hitting the ground. Lucky, yes. Yet, at 59, far too young. I will miss him: a good, honest, humble man of aristocratic Connecticut Valley pedigree and humor.

Years back, I remember speaking to him in passing right at the spot where he expired. I was hunting, stopped to chat and, without hesitation, addressed him by his old high school nickname. “Hey, Scottie,” I said to get his attention. When he looked up with bemused countenance, I took notice, thought maybe he hadn’t heard what I said. Then it dawned on me that maybe no one called him Scottie anymore. I asked if he objected to his old schoolyard name and he responded with that half-grunt, half-chuckle of his through a dense, unruly gray beard, looked me square in the eye with those warm, light-blue eyes, shook his head a bit and quipped, “No, not so much, but I don’t mind it. I can still call you Bags, can’t I?” His eyes always reminded me of my father’s. I call them Whately eyes, pale blue, kind and seductive. I was born with my mother’s browns; OK, I guess.

Since that day probably 20 years ago, we often spoke when our paths crossed, usually during hunting season, be it along North Street or up along the dirt road through the Glen, once Sanderson’s, now Scott’s. I even bought cordwood from him on occasion, never a bad load, a man of integrity you could trust. Friendships from youth, especially those shared by teammates, even on teams you’d rather forget, survive through years of adult separation. Such bonds are branded deep into a special chamber in your soul, where it takes only a soft bellow’s breath through puckered lips to quickly revive the ashen embers to a hot orange glow. Although we didn’t chum around, hunt together or socialize, we had that old indelible bond, Scottie and me. I’m sure he shared the same type of relationship with others. Not soul mates. Just friends.

It was fitting how I learned of my friend’s passing, right up there on that familiar Glen road where we shared ancestral spirits peeking around massive hardwoods like Pan himself, half goat, half man, before whimsically fleeing atop sturdy stonewalls stained with our DNA. A friend and I were returning from a hunt for hen of the woods mushrooms when I spotted Scottie’s longtime friend and hired hand, Tanner, approaching slowly in his truck. Tanner always putts along, searching the landscape. I pulled over to chat as I always do when I bump into Tanner. We talked about hen of the woods and the best place to find them before he told us of Scottie’s death less than 24 hours earlier at the base of the hill. “Oh,” I said. “No wonder Ducky was at his father’s place when I went through earlier.”

I still call Scottie’s younger brother Don “Ducky,” and I know others do as well, those who’ve known him since they were kids. For me, the nicknames stop with the kids, though. I call their father by his given name, Lyndon. Those of his generation know him as “Sonny.” Not me. I call him Lyndon, friend and distant relative of my dad, and that’s what I called him when I stopped to offer my condolences the day I learned of his older son’s passing. I found him sitting on a lawn chair near the driveway, two neighborhood ladies keeping him company on a difficult day I am familiar with. He seemed to be doing well, considering.

By chance, I ran into Ducky the next day at Pekarski’s. I was buying meat when his wife, Judy, walked through the doors. “Sorry to hear about Dave,” I said. “Yeah, it sucks,” she responded. I found Ducky sitting in his SUV outside, a young, happy, yellow Lab poking its head through the back window, ears alert, eyes friendly. Ducky was stoic, like his dad had been the day before, but I knew he had to be hurting inside. He told me the funeral service was scheduled for Sunday, a green burial “out back” in a plain pine box. He expected a crowd. I would be part of it.

When Sunday arrived, I planned my day around the service and arrived at Scott’s farm before 1 p.m., following a sign through the old barnyard and up the hill to a pasture I had often viewed from below but never visited. There were many cars and people, Scottie’s family and friends. The service would be on the first level, the burial a step up. The hearse was a simple hay wagon. Perfect for Scottie. I had to work and couldn’t attend the graveside ceremony at a secluded spot I’m sure is quite beautiful and tranquil. I’ll get up there someday, probably sooner than later. Maybe I’ll stop to say hello to Lyndon and offer him a ride up. I want to see it, maybe stop on a whim to say hello. I’m sure someone will show me the way. Maybe even Tanner if I catch him this fall in my travels. I’ll drive, drop it into 4-wheel if necessary. Scottie’s spirit will undoubtedly brighten the place, make it inviting and friendly in his gentle manner.

I was determined to sign the register before I left the pasture for work . There had to be a book somewhere, but I didn’t know where. I asked a few people but no one had seen it. When the minister invited people to the committal service up the hill, followed by a social gathering at a tent next to the house, I figured the tent was the most likely place to look. So I slid off toward the house and, sure enough, found the book there on a folding card table outside the tent. A woman neighbor was in front of me. We were on the same mission. My name went under hers, second. I printed my name, adding  below it “A Whately brother.” Others may have seen it and been confused, wondered what I meant. It doesn’t matter. Scottie and I were cut from similar Whately homespun. Many people claimed we bore a resemblance in high school. My mother has always said our fathers also look alike. It makes sense. We share many grandparents, all of whom lived in Whately when it was still Hatfield. Upper Pioneer Valley roots don’t grow much deeper than that among the fair-skinned.

While it’s true that I have never lived in Whately and likely never will, I will forever consider it my home. It flows through my bloodstream and also that of the ninth-generation farmer and friend who died young but left his mark. His humble hillside farm was part of him; now his private grave is part of it.

It’s sad we all can’t wind up in similar paradise.

Here I sit, once again wondering where I’m headed, akin to taking an old path through new woods. Unafraid, I’m confident I’ll find my way back to the truck one way or another. So why not stretch my legs and see where they take me?

I know where I should be going. It’s the final week of the 17-day September bear season. I could be calling the checking stations like I always have, digging for local tales worth sharing. But, no, I’m not going there today. That “Fancy Dan” presidential candidate of ours, Mitt “The Twit” Romney, ruined everything as Bay State governor. It seems these republicans with a capital R have perfected ways to keep the press at bay ever since Nixon reappeared in 1968 and … horrors … won. So, even right here in the cradle of liberty, no more quick calls to state officials without permission from professional screeners.

When I try to sidestep the annoying policy by calling longtime sources that trust me after years of interaction, the answer never changes: “Sorry, Gary, you know the rules.” In other words, as much as they’d like to talk, they can’t until they get permission, which has always been granted upon request, but never instantaneously. First, of course, “official” clearance must arrive by email or phone. Mind you, we’re talking about freakin’ bear-harvest numbers here, not state secrets. But I don’t want to get too wound up. I may well be under surveillance from a “smart meter” on the side of my home or maybe a tiny camera on the telephone pole across the street. Not out of the question these days, no matter what the apologists tell you.

Isn’t it sad how government has brought the press to heel these days, reducing “news” to press-release journalism, where everyone gets the homogenized story on the same day, and newspapers must resign themselves to reporting “old news” the morning after readers have seen it on the boob tube? Oddly, the papers seem fine with it. That’s what I can’t understand. Maybe it protects editors and scribes from getting “scooped” by the competition, if there is any, so they accept it. Not me. I view it as suicide and refuse to play their silly game. I’d much rather write something unique, even if it must be about poking around with the dogs, marveling at nature’s harmony, which, sadly, our political system cannot duplicate. Aren’t politics irritating? In fact, it’s gotten to the point where it’s difficult to pay attention; so much misinformation and deception, pure rhetoric aimed at toothless bores in Walmart boots who chew and savor it, then spit it up like a floppy-eared bitch in a whelping pen. The difference is that the regurgitated food on the floor helps pups’ weaning process. There is no benefit to propaganda unless you’re the special-interest group bankrolling it. I often find myself wondering where it’ll all lead. I think we’ll soon find out. Other empires have declined and decayed. Why should we be any different? Greed kills. Virtue is dead, or at least comatose.

But let’s not get mired in politics. I want to revisit the beechnuts I’ve been watching all summer. They’re now ripe and quite delicious. I’ve been eating them daily and even shared one the other day with a hippie dude nursing Christmas trees down in my favorite meadow. I may be a gun-owner and hunter but I’d rather talk to a hipster any day than one of those guys wearing an NRA cap, mirrored aviator sunglasses and a Cabela’s T-shirt, proudly belching Fox-News claptrap. From a man who’s never tweeted or texted, all I can say is OMG. Wait. Didn’t I leave out a letter? No. Better not. This is a family paper.

Anyway, back to the hippie dude. He chewed my shiny white beechnut pearl and said, “Mmmmmmm. Nice. Tastes a little like an almond.” I had spotted and walked toward the young man out of curiosity. It was raining and his parked motorcycle was covered by a blue tarp near the gate. Never before had I seen the bike there. When I reached him with the tree dogs, Lily barking in an unthreatening manner, I remembered having a handful of the thorny nuts in my breast pocket. I dug one out, split it in two, popped the two nuts out of the husks and peeled off the shells and inner brown film covering the good one before handing it to him. The other shell contained only a withered brown sliver. Don’t ask me why. It’s above my pay grade. But I have found several like it in recent days when breaking fallen nuts open. Also, most of the shells lying free out of their husks on the ground were similarly empty, much like I’ve grown accustomed to finding over the years in my beech-grove meanders. Earlier this summer, I couldn’t pick a nut that wasn’t full of immature meat; now this. Hmmmm? Maybe someone out there knows why so many beechnuts become hollow soon after or just before hitting the ground. If so, please tell.

Later that night at work, my chamois shirt covering photos stacked in a basket on my desk, I remembered the nuts were still in the pocket. I grabbed the shirt, took out a nut and pried it open. The interior shell was still greenish and, sure enough, both nuts were good, one better than the other. I peeled them both clean, threw the trimmings into the wastebasket and handed the better nut to desk mate and local agronomist Jay Butynski, to me, the Big Boiczek. He sampled it, looked at me like I was crazy and nodded with satisfaction. I told him that, although labor-intensive, a quart jarful of the little pearls would be great to have on the counter for mixing with fruit in morning cereal. Then he really thought I was losing it, maybe even turning granola-cruncher. But, hey, the Indians used to grind beechnuts into flour for nutritious breads and gruel that kept them far healthier than the stuff you buy nowadays at Stop & Shop or Shop & Save or whatever. Myself, I’m provincial and proud of it. At least local families own Foster’s and Big Y. That’s where I go. Big boxes are to me what smallpox was to colonials: something to stay far away from. But what do big boxes have to do with beechnuts, anyway? OK. I get it. Just a quick diversion. Back to the task at hand, that of local news that’s recently crossed my wayward path.

Whispers of a power company’s villainous role in the Aug. 28 flood that ravaged Deerfield apparently haven’t quieted. In fact, they may be getting louder. I received an email from a photographer friend who’d been out of town and missed my last two columns. He wanted to know if I had heard or written anything about a potential lawsuit by Deerfield farmers who contend that the power company erred by failing to release water from their upriver reservoirs as a safety precaution before Tropical Storm Irene. A fly-fishing guide told him the landowners were angry and united. I called a friend who’d know and he had heard nothing but said he’d look into it. I never heard back from him but did get another email the next morning from a Deerfield resident I do not now. He said WMass Electric Co. linemen had told people the day of the flood that the Whitingham Dam had been breached and the gates were opened because officials feared a disastrous blowout. He also claimed that local legislators had been flooded with calls for a probe but not a one of them wanted to touch it. Hmmmmm? Go figure. Who knows if there’s anything to it? Just thought I’d pass along the rumor. My guess is that it won’t be “news” to some readers.

Well, that’s all I’ve got for now, likely more than enough for the weak-kneed and true blue. I hope I didn’t stir things up too much. It’s hard to say exactly what consumed me. Maybe it’s the magical beechnut protein, spiritual food for thought. If so, I may yet fill that quart jar on the counter with pearls of wisdom to sprinkle on my cereal and stir my imagination.

They’re pure, wild and delightful.

With grandson Jordi in town for Labor Day weekend, I was sleeping in a small upstairs room when my wife appeared at the door after 4 a.m. Sunday.

“Honey?”

“Yeah.”

“Sorry to wake you. A cop just left. He said a neighbor complained that Buddy was barking and there’s a skunk in the kennel.”

“How could that be?” I thought, as I rose to dress.

A skunk in the kennel? Huh?

I hadn’t heard the barking because the air conditioner eliminated outside noise. But when I got out back, sure enough, Buddy, excited to see me, was leaping up at the kennel door. Below him, seemingly content and unalarmed, stood a young black skunk with a thin white strip down its tail. The little critter had already left its calling card, a strong odor clinging to the kennel area, as I cautiously approached. When I opened the door, swung it out and stepped back, Buddy sprinted toward the brook and I walked away in the same direction, attempting to give the skunk a wide berth.

After 10 or 15 seconds, the skunk waddled through the doorway and followed a stone wall away from us. I stood and watched, figuring I’d give it time to get out of sight before moving. Then, suddenly, the skunk took an abrupt left turn and scooted out our way like a kitten called to dinner. Curiously, the little critter seemed fascinated with Buddy, which I found a little unnerving, me standing there empty-handed in backyard darkness, wearing shorts and a pair of Birkenstocks. I sensed weirdness. Maybe the skunk had rabies or something else dreadful.

I decided to vacate the area, so I turned, walked quickly toward the barn and called Buddy, who sprinted past me like only Buddy can, running the length of the barn and circling into the front yard by the flagpole. When I looked back to monitor the skunk’s movement, I was surprised to see it following like a happy little lapdog. I picked up the pace, turned the corner, got to my carriage sheds and turned on the lights. My wife was standing in the open doorway, shooing Buddy out.

“Did you find it?” she asked.

“Yeah, it’s a young skunk. You should be seeing it soon. It’s following us.”

“Get a shovel,” she said. “Buzzy says that’s what he uses.”

As I walked toward the shovels, rakes and tools hanging on the inner shed wall, sure enough, here comes the skunk, right at me, not aggressive in any way, waddling with a happy gait. I grabbed the first thing I could reach, a long wooden-handled edger with a rounded 10-inch blade, and extended it out in front of me as the skunk passed. But that skunk wasn’t interested in me; it wanted its newfound Buddy, who was standing in front of the door my wife had by then closed. The friendly little critter walked up to Buddy, who didn’t seem the least bit afraid, ignoring it as he looped toward me. When the skunk followed, I backed off, but it kept coming right at me. At that point, when it got within reach on the illuminated driveway, I took a swipe at it, narrowly missed and the metal blade threw sparks off the tar in front of its face. The skunk got the message, turned and waddled away down the driveway and across the road, never to reappear. I put Buddy back in the kennel and went to bed.

In the morning, I went out back for daylight inspection and found that the skunk had tried to dig its way into the kennel around the entire perimeter. How it finally entered, I could not tell, but it got in, maybe squeezing through one of the three-inch diamond-shaped, chain-link fence openings. I daily feed the dogs out there in the adjacent cookhouse and the skunk must have been eating spilled food on the ground and cookhouse floor, then smelled something it liked in the kennel and found a way in while Buddy slept soundly on cedar shavings in his plastic 50-gallon drum. At least that’s my theory, and I did give the mystery some serious evaluation.

A day or two later, while walking my favorite meadow with the dogs, I recounted the story to a woman who raises Christmas trees there. We often speak in passing and that day was no different. Her theory was that the skunk had been separated from its mother by the flood or something else, and was temporarily confused and hungry. A similar post-flood occurrence had unfolded in her own yard, she said. A rat, flooded out of the steep bank overlooking a wet depression behind her home, had sat bold and brazenly in her yard for a couple of days until the floodwaters receded. Then it disappeared, likely back to where it had come from.

Later that day, on my second walk through the meadow, this time with my wife, the same woman approached through the mature Christmas trees. She wanted to share a tale about another critter she had encountered that had apparently been dazed by the flood. While cleaning and straightening her trees that had been underwater on Aug. 28, she and her crew came upon an unusual sight. Stretched out head-high across debris woven into the needled limbs of a seven-foot Christmas tree laid a large, healthy garden snake. A worker poked at the harmless reptile and it shot off to safety like it knew exactly what it was doing.

The moral of the story?

Although weird things happen when nature unleashes her fury and all hell breaks loose, wild creatures find a way to survive.

A lot of questions, few answers: That’s what’s facing me this week, especially Tuesday, on what would have been my late son’s 29th birthday.

I remember Gary’s 1982 birth well. There I was, marching with a bare-bones, pick-up softball team toward the annual Athol Labor Day Tournament finals, and my wife went into labor around 4 a.m. on, yup, Labor Day. How appropriate. Off to the Cooley-Dick we went, taking the back road through West Whately. We arrived at the hospital before 6, Gary was born by 8 or 9 a.m. and I raced off to sweltering Silver Lake Park, where we wound up winning the tourney against an array of ringer semi-fast pitchers from Gardner, the North Shore and New Hampshire. But that’s not my subject this week; no, just a quick diversion down memory lane before returning to the present. So now it’s back to the flood aftermath, and threats of new flooding with more rain that must be derailing opening week of bear season. These days, I’m most fascinated by the silt, sand and stone distribution on Old Deerfield’s meadows, north and south, quite a variation from one site to the next. It’s challenging to make sense of it all.

I’ll start on the North Meadows, where my friend raises a vegetable garden on historic Native American farmland owned by the Yazwinski family. There is no better soil in the world. That’s why the Pocumtucks, Deerfield’s indigenous tribe, chose it for their maize fields, which were discovered sometime after 1636 by William Pynchon and scouts seeking beaver pelts to export from their riverside Springfield base. I long ago told my buddy he was fortunate to have a garden down there, that he couldn’t find a better plot. If the Indians used it as cropland, it had to be the best soil on earth. Yeah, there are other local spots as good — Hadley’s Honey Pot and Northampton’s Oxbow, for instance — but none better than the North Meadows. Although I know I’m traipsing into blasphemous territory and am not intentionally trying to stir up true-believers who think the world is flat and began with Adam & Eve, sites like the North Meadows have layers of deep, rich soil deposited by annual floods dating back tens of thousands of years. Less than a mile upstream from the Deerfield’s confluence with the Connecticut River, that North Meadows soil got a foot or so deeper two weekends back.

A couple of days after the Aug. 28 flood closed local roads and bridges and swamped buildings, my buddy and I were discussing it on the phone. His North Meadows garden had been submerged by water so deep that it covered the 10-foot, steel rebar rods he erected for his climbing, Sicilian heirloom tomatoes. When the water disappeared, a five-gallon pail rested atop one of the rods like a Mexican sombrero, clearly illustrating a serious flood. Likewise, Sunken Meadow where I walk my dogs had been covered by six or eight feet of Green River water. When we discussed the fine, grayish silt spread over both sites, I mentioned something about it being the most fertile soil money could buy. He said he wasn’t sure that was true but offered no debate. He had walked through the deep, cumbersome mud that day, it was sticky and he wasn’t sure what to think. It appeared clay-based and he couldn’t be certain it was rich, organic soil. And I must admit that his uncertainty got me wondering about the silt’s quality, a question that bugged me for a few days.

Then, toward the end of the week, I got a telephone call at work from an old South Deerfield pal of mine, an “official” observer of the Deerfield flooding. He had not been to the North Meadows but had visited South Meadows and the Bars. When I mentioned that the only positive from a negative event was a new layer of rich topsoil, he told me I was mistaken. He had spoken to landowner Sandy Williams, whose South Meadows farmland was covered with sterile sand that had to be scraped off and trucked away. Hmmm? That got me thinking. Maybe fall floods don’t spread the good stuff like their spring cousins. I almost mentioned something about it last week here but was perplexed and decided against it at the last minute. I wanted to take a field trip before commenting, didn’t want to pillory my ignorance on the public square.

The plot thickened this week when I called my North-Meadows-garden buddy. He had spoken over the weekend to Butch Yazwinski, who told him the gray silt covering his acreage was as rich and fertile as it gets. With that question answered, my buddy drew the landowner into a conversation about a related subject he was curious about. He had noticed that, unlike North Meadows farmers, those working the South Meadows irrigated their crops. Why? Yazwinski told him the soil in the two adjacent meadows was dramatically different, the South Meadows’ sandy, the North Meadows’ rich. Intrigued, my buddy took a ride to the South Meadows and, sure enough, just like my other friend had told me, Williams and other farmers were busy scraping into big piles what looked like beach sand left by the flood. It had to be removed along with stones. The desert sand was obviously better suited for swimming than farming. The color alone made that obvious. Wasn’t it interesting, he thought, that two meadows on the same bottomland plain, just two or three miles apart, could have such different soil composition.

That Tuesday telephone conversation is what initiated my exploratory mission. I picked up my buddy and off we went to territory I am quite familiar with. We drove through the two meadows joined by a narrow, riverside strip that includes the flooded lower Deerfield Academy athletic fields, one meadow on each side of Old Deerfield Village. The North Meadows was covered with a rich, dense, gray silt with no resemblance to the stuff deposited on the South Meadows, where bucket-loaders were still scraping up sand. We wondered aloud about the phenomenon of two meadows so close getting entirely different soil deposits from the flood. It must have something to do with elevation, flow-rate and the comparative weight of the sand and rich gray sediment raging through the long, steep Shelburne/Conway gorge before flowing into Stillwater and spilling into the bottomland, sweeping around several sharp turns that eventually can’t contain the rising water. Whatever the dynamic, it has remained consistent for millennia, thus the dry, sandy soil in the South Meadows and rich, deep, black soil in the downstream delta. The lighter sediment settles in the expansive basin after the slightly higher plain gets the heavier sand and gravel. Plus, the rich sediment gets spread fairly evenly throughout the North Meadows by a backwater swirl that gently circles away from the destructive current hugging the western perimeter and fills the basin all the way to the Route 5 & 10 eastern lip.

Who knows? Maybe my explanation is way off. Then again, maybe common sense put me on the mark. I admit I’m no expert, just thinking on my feet. So why not just throw it out and see what happens. Not my first fishing expedition by any means. Maybe someone will read my observations and chime in. I may get three or four convincing explanations, not one of them accurate. I guess it’s a chance you take when chumming for answers. But I have a feeling that by next week I’ll know a lot more about flood silt distribution than I do now.

I hope so. It keeps life interesting.