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.

A light-gray silt film covering the dense, green, wild-rosebush border showed the water line from Sunday’s flash flood that inundated Sunken Meadow. It was head-high, maybe even a little over six feet, and had deposited a significant layer of what looked like clay throughout the Christmas tree farm, the blanket deepest in the depressions, where I sunk almost to my ankles Tuesday, covering my Keen sandals with fine gray mud. I was there to walk the dogs and assess the damage two days after observing the flooded meadow from its elevated western lip. Even the dogs recognized the difference, seemed extra curious. You could read it in their gait and demeanor.

One symbolic discovery told me how severe the flood had been. Following the riverbank wood line back to my truck, I noticed little Chubby, four months old, sniffing at something on the two-tire farm road with grass in the middle. When he picked it up and ran, head high and proud, I could see it was a fish, maybe a foot long. Upon closer inspection, it was a plump rainbow trout. Yeah, I know, a hatchery trout released this spring. Not “wild.” But, still, if fish died, it had to be serious. The two Great Blue Herons we flushed from the periphery must have been cleaning up other dead or stranded fish in the narrow wetland puddles along the back side.

My wife and I had taken a ride down there out of curiosity Sunday around 5 p.m., after witnessing the extent of the flooding at the Green River Swimming and Recreation Area. I had seen the place under water before, but not that deep. The Butynskis living along the southern lip concurred. About my age and living there all their lives, they had never seen their lower meadow and the swimming pool across the street under so much water. Not even close. It wasn’t far from spilling over Colrain Road. Truthfully, I would have never suspected such nearby devastation while sitting at home reading Sunday, maybe a half-mile west of the Green River. My backyard brook was roaring. I could hear it and went out with an umbrella several times to observe. Even my dogs respected it, obviously wanted no part of it. The roar must have warned them to stay away. But the deeply-cut bed, which drains runoff from Patten Hill in Shelburne, would have needed to rise three or four additional feet to overflow its banks; amazing when you consider what happened to the Green River just a hop, skip and a jump away.

I guess most of the Christmas trees down in Sunken Meadow will be salvageable with a little work. The larger ones sustained more damage than the little ones planted over the past two years, which seemed to “weather the storm” just fine, minus some that were uprooted and flattened by deadfalls and other debris swept up from the river below. The taller trees were leaning south and had sustained some damage to branches on their upstream sides, but they’ll probably be OK once pruned and straightened.

When I returned home, I passed the “Road Closed” sign at the outflow of my driveway and headed for the Jersey barriers 200 yards up Brook Road to see what was happening on the other side. A Shelburne Highway Department crew put up the sign and barriers Saturday, before the tropical storm hit, presumably as a precautionary measure on a gorge road where all hell can break loose during heavy rainstorms. Curious to see if the heavy-duty repairs to some washed-out ravines from a few years back had held up through four to six inches of rain in less than 12 hours, I figured I’d take a little walk with the dogs. I love it when that road is closed and I can walk the dogs up it totally safe, no worries about traffic. People from Patten Hill, East Colrain and southern Vermont have a different opinion. When the curvy, brook-side road is closed, they wail at the inconvenience. If you don’t believe me, ask Shelburne selectmen. They’ve heard the cries every time they’ve suggested discontinuing the troublesome road to save money and labor. I walked about a half-mile to two bridges and found no damage other than a couple of small trees down in the road. Nothing serious. So, unless something let loose above where I walked to, the road closure is temporary. It was still closed Wednesday, reopening it not likely a priority with all the damage in downtown Buckland-Shelburne.

When I got back to my yard, greener than it’s ever been this time of year since I bought the place, I put Lily and Buddy in the kennel, brought Chubby around to the backyard alcove with me, fed him, sat down and finished “Ethan Allen: His Life and Times,” by Willard Stearne Randall while awaiting two loads of cordwood, primo, gray, dry oak. The biography ought to be required reading these days for anyone who believes that these Tea Party idiots making such a commotion resemble in any way the colonial radicals who fomented the American Revolution. The rebels who filled Boston Harbor with tea and plotted revolt were liberals and ardent democrats, not reactionary right-wingers protecting the status quo. The conservatives in those days were Tories, or loyalists, who supported the king and even took up arms alongside the British against the likes of Washington, Allen and the Revolutionary army. Had the latest health-care fiasco occurred in Ethan Allen’s day and been resolved as it was in favor of the larcenous insurance companies pilfering Americans daily, Allen would have ridden in with the Green Mountain Boys and ran them out of town on a rail, if they were lucky. Ethan Allen was a defender of the common man, no friend of the clergy, the royalty, the courts and corrupt politicians. Had he been alive a few years back, he likely would have ridden down Wall Street on a chestnut horse and ordered it burned to the ground, not bailed out the thieves so they could continue abusing the little guy. Allen had no love for New York schemers in the 18th century and would have had no change of heart today. Trust me.

I can say I’m proud to call Ethan Allen a cousin. We needed more like him back then, and desperately need a few good men like him now. But don’t hold your breath waiting. It ain’t happenin’. If you thought it was difficult to overthrow power in those days of sailing ships, flintlocks and tomahawks, try it against today’s frightening military force, which always protects those in charge.

I guess all we can do these days is shut up and accept it. Either that or pretend we don’t understand it.

Had Mike Flanagan been told that Gary Sanderson would publish a story about UMass memories after his death, he probably would have flashed that wry, crooked grin I remember well and quipped, “Bags? Uh-oh!”

But I’m not here to dust off skeletons from the closets at the 20 Ball Lane, Amherst bungalow we once called home. No, that is not my errand. Mike Flanagan was a dedicated ballplayer. No Animal House tales. Only good stuff. I only want to embellish the legacy of a man we called “Flan,” polish the legend of this former major league pitcher and Cy Young Award winner who committed suicide Wednesday at his Maryland home. He was 59. Too young. I knew him before he made it big. But the truth is that Flanagan was always big, which doesn’t mean physically large, just huge on talent. Anyone who played with or against him would agree. We all knew he had it and was destined to make it. He was a that good.

“You really ought to give him a call sometime, I think he’d get a kick out of hearing from you,” urged a mutual friend who said my name came up in a conversation with Flanagan in the past five years. “He loves fly fishing and would probably like to go out with you if he’s ever around.”

Well, that never happened. I figured a lot of “old friends” had contacted Flanagan over the years looking for tickets or other favors. I didn’t want to be just another pest. Plus, frankly, I had little to offer. My serious fishing days were over in the early 90s.

It has been said that Flanagan and I were roommates, which is not true. Legends seem to grow with time. Actually, I was the man who took his Ball Lane bed when he departed for Baltimore Orioles training camp. I moved in after the start of the spring 1974 semester, sharing the small North Amherst bachelors’ pad behind Matuszko Trucking with UMass basketball guard Billy Endicott and two of my baseball teammates, righthanded pitchers John Olson and Chip Baye. I knew Baye because I had faced him in Legion ball and scrimmaged his Northampton High School football teams.

My Ball Lane transition period was uncomfortable at first because Flanagan was still in town until mid-February and there was an interim period of a few weeks when I was moving in and hanging in limbo. But we got through it with aplomb. Flanagan was always easy going, affable and funny, a great, fun-loving guy. The last time I actually saw him in person was during the 1974 UMass spring baseball trip to Miami Beach. We were playing Biscayne College, which served as the Orioles’ minor league camp, and he stopped by to sit on our bench and watch the game with O’s teammate Mike Boddicker. The last time I spoke to him on the phone was in the early 1980s, when Chip Ainsworth and I were doing a weekly radio talk show on Greenfield’s WPOE AM-1520. I’d get his phone number from his father, Manchester, N.H., mechanic Ed Flanagan, and set up a time to call him for an on-air interview. I don’t recall interviewing the man, but we probably did.

Flanagan’s dad was an average Joe. There was nothing average about son Mike. He never ceased to amaze me with his extraordinary athletic skills, a kid who could do anything he put his mind to. Take pinball, for instance. He was a master. We lived just around the corner from a jock bar then named Mike’s Westview Café. The place was busy seven nights a week and Flanagan often stopped in to have a few beers, play pinball and socialize. He loved “Big Indian,” one of those classic old machines that tilted, had flippers and bumpers and bells and whistles. He’d enter the bar after supper, say 7 or 8, and leave the machine a few hours later with so many free games racked up on the board that people would play “on him” until closing. No lie. That game fared no better against him than hitters. He dominated.

People have often asked me to rate Flanagan as a pitcher. He was a lefty and I did face him a few times in live practice drills with no success. I remember arriving at Earl Lorden Field for practice in the fall of 1972, checking the daily hitting schedule and finding my name among the three hitters who would face the phenom. On the one hand, I thought it unfair. I was trying to make a team against stiff competition, with about 140 candidates vying for 40 slots. Why did I have to face the best pitcher in New England? But on the other hand, the fact that I was slotted against him was flattering. It told me I was being seriously evaluated. I vaguely remember the at-bats. Flanagan threw hard and his control was excellent, the best I had seen, so he gave you little to work with. Your choices were pretty simple: hit it where it was pitched or strike out and look foolish doing so. Your only chance was a mistake. He made few. My recollection is that in three shots at him I hit two ground balls to second base and a pop-up caught by the shortstop in short center field. I didn’t embarrass myself, but he got me out. The name of the game.

Flanagan was a fine-tuned precision machine, the likes of which I had never faced. I had seen scarier fastballs. Amherst’s Tom White first comes to mind. You could hear his heater as it exploded past your face, the high ones rising, the low ones dipping. When Whitey was on, it was a victory to foul one off. No lie. He was that overpowering; a lean, mean, 6-foot-6 lefty with a nasty fastball. But he didn’t have Flanagan’s confidence, command or repertoire and fizzled out in Double A. I think he would have made it as a one-pitch short reliever in today’s specialized game.

I actually “caught” Flanagan informally a few times on the frozen, gravel Ball Lane parking lot. He and other pitchers sometimes begged to throw on warm winter days and I’d accommodate them by putting  on a glove and playing catch before squatting to offer my target. The others could be erratic and leave welts and bruises. Not Flan. I swear he rarely missed by more than the width of the baseball. That fine, whether throwing his tailing fastball, the big 12-to-6 curve or a tighter breaking ball he’d use to cut the corners on two-strikes pitches. His command was so good — even for those off-season, parking-lot sessions — that I wouldn’t have hesitated to catch him sitting naked on a peach basket in a paved lot. No one I ever faced could hit spots like Flanagan. It was the skill that separated him from the rest.

Flanagan probably could have made it as a big-league hitter. Too bad he didn’t play in the National League, where pitchers hit. He would have done some damage. Few people who own his baseball card likely know he was not only one of the Cape League’s best pitchers in 1972, but also among its home-run leaders. Check it out if you doubt me. It’s true. Which reminds me of a night during the 1973 UMass season when I drew Flanagan’s ire after midnight. Limping from a sprained ankle that had ended my season and required two-a-day, physical-therapy, crushed-ice whirlpools, I flopped down at 20 Ball Lane on the night before a big Saturday doubleheader and hung around with the fellas for an hour or two. Flanagan was relaxing in a worn, dusty stuffed chair that looked like the ones you see roadside with a “free” sign. Watching TV and joking around with the gang, his mood changed when he discovered I needed a ride back to my frat house. He begrudgingly offered his services but wasn’t thrilled about the late-night inconvenience. After dropping me off at Sig-Ep and speeding off in what I think was a black Pontiac, he went home to bed, awoke the next morning and pitched a UMass game for the ages. Going against Yankee Conference rival Maine on short sleep in the twin-bill opener, he hit three home runs, drove in six runs, scored four and pitched a two-hitter with 10 strikeouts in a 10-1 win. The run he surrendered was unearned. Look it up if you don’t believe me. It’s a piece of the UMass Flanagan legend; to him, just another day at “The Earl.”

Baseball wasn’t the only sport Flanagan excelled at. He was a pretty fair country point guard on the 1971-72 freshman basketball team that compiled the best record in UMass history. Other notable players on that 15-1 team were Endicott, John Murphy and Jimmy Burke. Rick Pitino was a sophomore on the varsity. Another Flanagan teammate on that freshman team was South Deerfield’s late Rickey Boron, a friend of mine who was a year ahead of me at Frontier Regional School. Boron was Frontier’s first 1,000-point scorer back in the days when the milestone meant something, before the 3-point shot. He was the sixth or seventh man on the Redman team and had quite a reputation as a free-throw shooter capable of throwing in 100 straight almost anytime. One day after practice at Curry Hicks Cage, late UMass coach Jack Leaman approached Boron to tell him he’d heard about his free-throw-shooting prowess. He then issued a challenge: “I’ll rebound until you miss.”  That too became UMass legend when Boron proceeded to toss in more than 200, which apparently didn’t faze Flanagan a bit. Boron, who reportedly beat NBA Hall of Famers Sam Jones and John Havlicek regularly in free-throw contests at summer camps where he was a counselor, once told me that Flanagan was his toughest opponent. It was Flanagan’s confidence and Boron’s diffidence that leveled the contest. Flanagan would step to the line and throw in 50 or so, then playfully needle Boron until he missed. Boron wasn’t hesitant to admit that Flanagan could psych him out. You just can’t beat confidence in athletic competition, and Flanagan oozed it.

Apparently Flanagan recognized his basketball limitations quickly at UMass, though. When playing for the Toronto Blue Jays in the late 80s, he told a Toronto Sun beat writer about a memorable UMass practice against Erving that had set him straight. “I really didn’t know much about Dr. J until I came down on a fast break and pulled up to take a jump shot,” Flanagan told the scribe. “Dr. J was nowhere in the area but, out of nowhere, he blocked the shot and nine players were running the other way. First thing I thought? Better work on my slider, because this is a whole different level of play.” Perhaps he did scrimmage against Erving at the Cage, but Erving was a rookie for the Virginia Squires during the 1971-72 ABA season.

I could go on forever. There are so many yarns I could spin about Flanagan, all of them stitched with thread from which legends are stitched. Let me end with a couple anecdotes from a 1973 Amherst Common fair. The month was probably October and Flanagan, a pro ballplayer, was in town during the offseason to finish up his degree. Our UMass baseball team had returned from a Saturday doubleheader at Dartmouth College and I was headed downtown with two teammates when we bumped into Flanagan outside of Boyden Gym. We stopped to talk and he decided to accompany us to a downtown bar named Barsellotti’s, “Barsie’s,” for a couple of beers before checking out the fair. We figured we’d horse around and get a bite to eat. When we passed through the gate in a festive mood, a clown was juggling three wooden balls over to the side. Flanagan stood close and studied him for a minute or two before requesting a quick lesson. The clown obliged by slowing down a bit to demonstrate technique, then held out the balls with a why-don’t-you-try-it challenge. Flanagan accepted. After a few mess-ups, Flanagan surprised the clown and us by finding his rhythm and juggling like a court jester. That, I will never forget. The guy was blessed with extraordinary hand-to-eye coordination.

It gets better. Later that same night on the midway, we came upon a loudmouth carnival barker sitting on the plank above a dunk-the-dink tank. The dink dude was hollering out insults like, “Hey, chicken wing or noodle arm, give it a shot” and other barbs intended to pull in suckers. He clearly didn’t know what he was dealing with when our foursome approached. There we were, four ballplayers — three pitchers, one a pro with pinpoint control — and they were offering three throws for a buck. Baseballs, no less. Though short on cash as students usually are, we couldn’t resist the tease. Most enticing was the fact that the dink wasn’t wearing a wetsuit. He was about to pay a stiff price in the frigid autumn air. Within 10 or 15 minutes on that cold, dark, windy night, that dink was turning a light shade of blue and shivering so hard that we could hear his teeth chattering from where we stood outside the booth. He finally cried uncle, pulled in a replacement and wrapped himself up in a couple of wool blankets. The scene really tickled Flanagan’s funny bone. He laughed hysterically and tossed a few good-natured verbal harpoons at the shivering soul as we walked away.

I guess that’s how I want to remember “Flan,” with that infectious laugh and cool, calculated confidence. Don’t bore me with the portrait those who didn’t know him are painting in the press following his tragic final act. The way I view it, he departed his way. As a friend, I must accept that.

I always look forward to early summer when my raspberries and blueberries ripen and I can go outside, pick and drop them atop a fresh bowl of cereal before returning to the kitchen, pouring in milk and mixing it up with a tablespoon. Although the berries have gone by, I can now buy local peaches, a tasty harbinger of the fall bird-hunting season. I prefer the flavorful, tart yellows but don’t turn my up nose to the delicate whites. I cut them up small to mix with my cereal, hot or cold, depending on my mood.

These days, I notice myriad autumnal signs, such as the sound of random hickory nuts falling to the forest floor with a rumble, several knocks and a thud, the smooth, round green husks intact. And how about the rivers and streams? After a couple of melancholy months, the recent rain has brought them back to life, and they’re now swollen with vitality and vigor. Isn’t it interesting how dark, threatening skies can bring such happiness to a stream? Nature’s way. I often compare brooks and rivers to human passions, the ebbs and flows, and get a daily dose of that analogy with the centerline of a gravel-bed stream serving as my property’s northern boundary.

This fall should be fun when the gunshots echo from the upland meadows. It’s going to be the year when I figure out if Buddy, 2, is ever going to be a productive gun dog. He came to me a bit “confused” through no fault of his own, bringing with him a retrieving issue created by a handler’s heavy-handed error. I have now given him better than a year without any pressure, allowing him to freewheel and enjoy our daily romps through diverse coverts with me, including many tagalong hunts last season. This year, I’ll exert a little pressure and see how he reacts. If he doesn’t work out, so be it. I’ll live with mediocrity. But I suspect he’ll be fine. He displays all the tools, especially speed, nose and agility, and he’s always been easy to handle.

Lily, 8, is my finished gun dog, a little north of her prime following emergency April surgery. I figure she still has a couple of good years left. And with little Chubby, 4 months old, waiting in the wings, I’m all set for years. Chubby shows potential, pretty much a self-starter who’ll need a little guidance for retrieving and hand signals. Other than that, I’ve already seen enough to know the little guy’s going to be an relentless flusher. He’s been stalking butterflies and flying grasshoppers for a month, clearly has what it takes, and will soon learn to love the shotgun’s roar. I have no doubts that little Chubby’s going to be a good one, even if the unflattering name I gave him before I decided to keep him is an insult. I guess when I finally get around to sending in his AKC registration papers, I’ll have to call him Old Tavern Farm’s Ethan Chubb, maybe even Nathan, with that distinguished old-English ring. That’ll be as good a cover as any for an otherwise unsuitable name.

The great weather we’ve enjoyed this week has got me thinking about cordwood again. I’ve been sitting on two or three cords of seasoned red oak that I arranged Wednesday to have delivered. When I say seasoned, I mean good and seasoned, three or four years stacked outside and covered on top. My only fear is that it’s too dry. I have never picked up split 18-inch pieces of oak so light. Not punky. Bone dry and hard. I just hope it doesn’t burn too fast.

I still intend to buy my five or six cords of black locust from political soul mate Blue Sky. I’m addicted to the stuff. But this primo oak should be fun, too. I’ll pick and choose daily for just the right mix, may even use the oak for my fireplaces, especially the one in the taproom that serves as my favorite winter reading station, pole lamp with a hanging shade standing temporarily next to a flame-stitch wing chair and ottoman in front of the fireplace. Sometimes the flames, the heat and the music — typically bluegrass, maybe Dylan, Garcia, Norman Blake, Tim O’Brien, Steve Earle or Jorma Koukonen — send me off into another realm. When that happens, not infrequently, I just place the book down on my lap and let my mind wander off to forbidden places, sometimes rising for a quick trip to the computer to capture a thought or riff. It may sound like a tough life in the cold of winter, but somebody’s got to do it. Why not me?

Speaking of reading, I’ve been on an Ethan Allen kick recently and just discovered there’s a new biography out on the Vermont rabble-rouser. I can’t wait for Willard Sterne Randall’s “Ethan Allen: His Life and Times” to arrive in the mail. I was led to Allen by recent interest in the many French & Indian wars (1675-1763) that visited the Connecticut Valley, necessitating the construction of local forts like Pelham, Shirley, Dummer and No. 4. Irascible Ethan Allen was actually introduced to Vermont as young Litchfield, Conn., soldier during the final French & Indians War (1754-63). I have had an interest in the man for many years because I share many genealogical links and political philosophies with him. Some distant relatives would run away from the infamous rebel known as a brawler and blasphemer. Not me. I worship my fiery genes and am proud to have cousins like Allen, who had the audacity to call politicians and clergy of his day rascals and thieves. But enough of that. On to the next subject, one still inspired by thoughts of autumn.

I had planned to buy a new 16-gauge side-by side shotgun this year, preferably a classic, pre-WWII, European double with a straight English stock. But then came unexpected financial burdens — a funeral, a big veterinary bill and a couple of expensive car repairs to name a few — thus my vow to hold off till next year. Why cut myself thin for a gun I don’t need? I have enough shotguns to get by, and can easily squeeze out another year with my old, battered Jean Breuil, of that classic aforementioned style. Hey, even my 12-gauge Citori over-and-under would work in a pinch, although I prefer side-by-sides. But mark my words: there’s a fancy European double with a flame walnut stock that has my name on it. Call it my retirement gun, something made by an artisan, not cheap factory help. It has been said that fine double-barrels, tweed jackets and jugs of after-the-hunt Rare Breed can put a man in great places with excellent company.

Enough!

I better stop meandering. That’s about all I’ve got for this week. Sometimes I get to the bottom of a piece like this and wonder how I got here. What made me think of this or that or the other thing? But why even entertain such insignificant queries? The lawn is waiting. I’d like to put it behind me before the weekend. Then I can just sit back and wait for the sound of that dump truck backing up to my woodshed with a load of dry oak that’s seasoned gray; either that or mail lady Rose stopping out front to squish Ethan Allen into my mailbox.
I do hope Ethan arrives first. That way, maybe I can plow through all 615 pages before the wood is dumped. Yeah, I know it’s work. I can’t say I dread it.

Old buddy Richie Kellogg — Big R — phoned Monday morning to renew a summer-long discussion about a rogue black bear that’s been frequenting his Wendell neighborhood.

The first time he called, in May or early June, he was concerned because this bear was injured, had destroyed his bird feeders and didn’t seem to be the least bit afraid of Kellogg, a big man who’d blend perfectly into a NFL locker roomful of offensive tackles. It probably wasn’t the smartest thing Big R ever did the day he approached the animal in his driveway, walked up to within 20 feet and spoke to it in a friendly manner.

“Hey Buddy,” he coaxed. “You’ve gotta go. Carol’s afraid of you.”

That’s when he saw what looked like something attached to the bear’s lower left leg, just above the paw, which the animal was holding off the ground.

“I would have liked to reach down and pull it out to help the poor thing out but I didn’t dare,” he said. “I felt sorry for it.”

Seemingly unaffected by the face-to-face encounter or being spoken to, the big bear just stood there on three legs looking at Kellogg, then growled when he tried to creep a little closer. The growl unnerved Kellogg, who’s battling disability to his once powerful right hand and wrist, so he slowly backed away onto his deck and went inside to safety. Since then, Big R, who thinks it’s a 250-pound bruin, has been keeping his eyes open whether visiting his garden or backyard pool. He has seen the animal only twice but knows it’s around because of the calling cards it leaves behind.

“I don’t know if I have anything to be worried about, but I wouldn’t want to get attacked,” he said. “I don’t know if I could fight it off.”

It seems likely that the protrusion Kellogg noticed on the bear’s lower leg is a compound fracture, either from an awkward jump or a collision with a vehicle. If it was a large sliver of some type, the animal would have pulled it free by now.

By Monday, the picture had changed dramticaly. Kellogg reported that he’s not the only person in his neighborhood nervous about the bear. Just down the road, Joel Sears has been aware of the animal’s presence for some time because it’s torn up his blueberries and garbage, once even jumping up to take garbage from the bed of his pickup truck. It got worse for Sears late last week when he returned home to discover his kitchen had been ransacked. The bear had torn open the cupboards and eaten muffins and whatever else it could find to satisfy its hunger.

Kellogg says Sears called MassWildlife to suggest that the bear be removed by authorities, but they offered little help, just advice to be alert and keep potential food inaccessible.

“I’ve been locking my door ever since I heard about it going in the house,” Kellogg said. “I’m afraid it’s gonna break into my place. He could push that door in easily unlocked. My wife thinks I’m crazy. I told her it would be wise to respect this animal. It’s no teddy bear, and it’s injured.”

The problems may not last much longer. Bear season opens on Sept. 6. Maybe someone will put this pathetic animal out of its misery.

I would guess that many people who poke around in the woods like me have, upon entering a beech grove or passing an extraordinary beech tree, stopped out of curiosity to scratch at the ground searching for nuts to crack open looking for meat. I also imagine that these folks have come away as perplexed as me to discover that the nuts are typically hollow and quite useless.

I have repeated this exercise often over the years, alone or with someone, and have left scratching my head, wondering why I can’t find a fertile nut on a forest floor dense with immature beech trees of various sizes. Obviously some of the nuts that fall to the ground are good. The immature beeches tell me that. But why can’t I find any? It’s a mystery my friends and I have never solved. Then, this year, on my daily rambles with the dogs, I happened upon a lowland beech I’ve mentioned before, one full of good nuts from its bottom limbs to its crown. In fact, I have not yet picked one nut that wasn’t full of meat, very uncharacteristic in my experience.

By mentioning this discovery here and receiving feedback from foresters and wildlife biologists alike, the beechnut issue seems to be coming into better focus, although I must admit the massive beech I’ve been observing stands in a place where I’m not used to finding beech trees. I am accustomed to finding and sampling beechnuts along the upland ridges where deer and bears and turkey roam. Often these solitary beech trees or dense beech groves stand high and dry in ledgey terrain. Yes, such trees or groves may overlook a cedar or hemlock swamp, but I cannot recall finding beeches in upland swamps, which doesn’t mean they don’t exist. It just seems to me that this is not where you’d expect to find them.

So, the fact that the bottomland beech I’ve been watching is rooted into the lip of a wetland could be the reason it produces so many nuts. According to a forester, beeches need lots of water for optimal nut production, and this tree gets plenty. Then again, maybe this is just a good year and it won’t be nearly as productive next year. We’ll have to wait and see. But at least this year, in my mind, the beech tree is fascinating. A factor that hints this could be an extraordinary year, though, is the absence of infant beeches surrounding the stately tree.

Former state Deer Project Leader John McDonald, now a wildlife biologist for the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service in Hadley, read about my beech and chimed in by e-mail about beechnut production and a survey he conducted years ago as part of a Massachusetts bear study. Focused on beechnut and acorn production that’s so important to a bear’s diet, McDonald put out seed traps to collect the nuts and did visual surveys of trees’ crowns to quantify the nut production in a study area. He remembers one year in particular when his visual assessment indicated an extraordinary year for beechnuts; however, examination of the nuts captured in the seed traps told an entirely different story. Upon opening his collected beechnuts, McDonald found almost every one empty.

“When I say ‘almost,’ I mean maybe one out of every couple hundred nuts actually contained meat,” he wrote. “The rest were empty. We would have totally overestimated how much food was available if all we did was the visual study or count the nuts in the traps.”

McDonald’s field research confirms my own observations from more than 40 years or traipsing through local forests and breaking open beechnuts with my worn teeth (Pssst. Don’t tell my buddy and dentist Dr. Mark). I don’t know how many nuts one mature beech tree produces, but apparently one fertile nut out of every couple hundred is enough to keep our beech groves alive and well.