A soft cool breeze tickled my right eardrum, caressed the tip of my nose and carried my scent in a northeasterly direction, toward the small stream exiting a massive beaver pond a hundred or more yards north. The clock was the sunset shadow creeping up the eastern ridge before me. I knew that once the sunlight left the highest peak to my right, there would be a half hour remaining in the deer-hunting season. But a lot can happen at dusk while concealed on the edge of an orchard posting a well-traveled deer run, and after 12 days of shotgun and 15 days of blackpowder season, this was precisely where I wanted to kiss the season farewell.

What few apples had fallen to the ground in the barren orchard were long gone, foraged by the wild creatures they attract. But deer were still feeding through the orchard nightly, picking their way through the oaks before popping into a secluded corner. Experience told me they’d soon appear on the eastern perimeter. It was just a matter of where and when.

It’s spooky how you anticipate where they’re going to come from, strain your eyes to detect subtle movement in the woods before they pop out into the orchard and — bingo! — there they are, ghost-like, appearing out of nowhere, right in your lap, big doe leading the way. She serves as the eyes, ears and nostrils of those trailing her, stopping often in search of imminent danger, never a sound or sighting until she’s right there in your kitchen.

Some days only the does show up, breaking into the opening one by one, single file. But you’re always waiting for the buck to appear last, satisfied that the coast is clear. With the light rapidly disappearing, you just pray he pops out in time for you to get a crack at him. The trick is remaining painfully still and silent to prevent the does from detecting you and alerting the buck, which isn’t easy as it sounds. Because even when you’re still and silent as a ledge, a variable wind shifting directions is all it takes to blow your cover, as it had in that identical spot on a previous evening.

The Weather Channel had predicted it that evening: afternoon winds from the west, changing to northwest in the evening. And, sure enough, the wind-shift occurred on my watch, with two mature does in the orchard below me, feeding cautiously in my direction. As I sat there observing the animals — Black Diamond 50 caliber shouldered, fiber-optics illuminated in their direction — I could sense uneasiness in the leader, and she was clearly transferring her caution to the doe trailing five or 10 yards behind her. The wind was in my favor and I was frozen, moving only my eyes while sitting comfortably on the ground, back resting against a blow-down, small white pine tree screening me from the deer. But wild animals have an uncanny way of sensing your presence, and this doe definitely was uneasy.

Even as she picked at the orchard grass, she appeared to be looking right at me, pausing time and again to lift her head slightly, flex her ears forward and peer at me like a schoolmarm looking over her reading glasses. Then I felt the wind shift from the naked back of my neck to my left ear and the lead doe lifted her head shoulder-high. She flicked her flag nervously, stomped her right front foot twice into the turf, extended her head high, snorted, wheeled around and bound off.

The other deer stood motionless and erect until she passed, then followed her companion into the woods, where two others joined fled with them. It was over in a matter of seconds. Vanished into thin air, four of them, snorting aggressively a couple more times as they fled.

That wasn’t going to happen this time. The wind was right, blowing into my right ear. But, first, the deer had to select the right path into the orchard, which, of course, is never a given.

With time running out and the gray light turning black, I thought I spotted something at the woods’ edge below me, through the white pine bows between me and the run. It looked like a deer facing me, barely discernable among saplings on bare ground. Was it a deer or a low-light mirage? That was he question. I raised my gun slowly, pointed it in the right direction and watched motionless, rapidly losing my depth perception. Then, when it became too dark to pick out detail, I slowly rose, sort of expecting to watch a brilliant white flag bounce away. But there were no flags. False alarm.

I reached for my ramrod, leaning against a small black cherry, and slid it into place below my barrel. I picked up my leather sling, draped over the blow-down backrest, and secured it to my weapon, then reached for my fanny pack, picked it off the ground and fastened it around my waist. When I reached for my weapon, leaning securely against the cherry, I spotted a deer, standing broadside in the orchard between the first two rows of trees, maybe 60 yards in front of me. A big deer, standing still, head and ears erect.

If I could see horns in the vanishing light, I could take it, but horns were not visible. At least not yet. With nothing to lose and time running out fast, I sat on the blow-down hoping the deer would walk toward me. But it just stood there motionless for perhaps 30 seconds, probably less, snorted twice and bound off through the orchard. Two others followed.

Knowing it was over, I stood, walked 20 feet into the orchard and headed back to my car, which happened to be in the same direction the deer had run. When I reached the pond at the base of the road leading from the farmhouse to the orchard, I pointed my weapon low toward the eastern perimeter of the orchard and squeezed the trigger, abruptly breaking the idyllic silence and momentarily polluting the refreshing black mountain air with blue-gray Pyrodex smoke, which quickly dissipated in the soft southwest breeze.

I turned to ascend the final hundred yards of another invigorating season to my vehicle. My feet were light, my soul fulfilled.

My mind started wandering on a fog-drenched Wednesday morning as my truck meandered home through the Greenfield Meadows, and for some reason it brought me back to my old footloose days, when I’d head for a hilltown stream on similar damp, grey days.

Back then, there was always a round, galvanized, two-handled washtub full of lively nightcrawlers in the musty cellar. The tub contained perhaps four inches of topsoil mixed with coffee grounds and covered by a deep layer of wet leaves from the previous fall.

Before first light, a common ritual would begin by descending five cement stairs into the cellar, forest-green metal bait box in hand. I’d pull the crawler tub toward me from the waist-high dirt mound supporting the stone fireplace footing, scoop in a light handful of the black soil, pick a few more crawlers than I’d need, and top them with a thin layer of moist leaves before climbing the stairs back to the shed. There, I’d pull my hat, vest, net, creel and hip boots from their pegs, grab my spinning rod and open-faced reel from their pegboard perch, throw everything in the vehicle and head out for a relaxing morning of trout hunting. Just reminiscing, I can still feel the invigorating freedom of those many trips to Conway, West Whately or wherever, alert to the countryside sights and sounds along the way. Noting like a slow daybreak country ride to soothe the soul.

Upon arrival at the stream, I’d pull my vehicle to the side of the road and go through my checklist: shoes off, boots on; fasten bait box and hip boots to belt before tightening; throw on vest and hat; grab rod and reel; lock car; walk to stream. Oh how I hate to think about the times I got halfway down the bank and realized I had forgotten something, forcing a return trip to the vehicle. But, hey, that’s part of the program, particularly on the morning after a night of misbehaving. Heathen penance, I guess.

The sound of the rushing water gets louder with each step, triggering an adrenaline rush that’s as good as any you can buy on the black market. Talk about a natural high. Then, when you arrive at streamside, you blend into the habitat, moving slowly, walking softly to disguise your presence. Along the way, you pass a clump of ferns, pick a handful and layer them on the bottom of the wicker creel to keep your trout moist and fresh. Stringers work just fine, but there was always something about a wicker creel that I preferred. Maybe the look.

As for the fishing itself, well, there are many ways to cover a trout stream, and my preferred method evolved over many years of youthful worm-dunking. I’d start by fishing downstream, sneaking up on the productive holes, finessing a delicate pendulum cast upstream from the target area and dead-drifting the bait into the pool, twitching the rod tip gently to keep the hook off the stream bed. Then, as the bait dropped into the darkened depths – bang! – a hard strike. If I rolled it over and lost it, so be it. I’d be back on the way out to get even. If I landed the fish and hooked it fatally deep, I’d snap its neck and throw it in the creel. Otherwise, I’d toss the lively speckled trout back for another day.

I always had a downstream destination from which my fishing technique would change dramatically. Once there, I’d bang a U-ey and fish upstream back to my vehicle, remembering every fish that had slipped my hook. The challenge of fishing upstream sharpens your senses, because it’s more difficult to control a line that’s coming at you instead of moving away. Not only that, but you’re always dealing with strikes on slack line that can create hook-setting issues. The way I always looked at it, the difference between fishing downstream and upstream was akin to the difference between hitting a fastball and a changeup. Free swingers tend to have problems with the off-speed stuff.

Finesse is the key to success when casting upstream and fishing with the bait returning to you in the current, often rapidly. It’s essential to keep your rod tip high and retrieve slack line quickly to avoid a tangled spool. You prevent the hook from snagging the bottom by twitching the rod tip and bouncing the bait toward you. It’s never easy or fool proof, but highly effective once you perfect it, especially in the riffles. And it keeps you sharp because you must pay attention, reading the water and feeling the flow. Not a lazy man’s game. Relaxing nonetheless

Time truly flies for the solitary angler fishing the shadows on a secluded stream. It seems like one minute you’re a mile downstream from your vehicle, the next minute you catch the reflection of the noontime sun off your chrome bumper.

I vividly recall catching that first glimpse of my vehicle after three to five hours fishing in the forest, feeling cool, wet and totally fulfilled. Mind relaxed and clear as a blue sky, I’d climb the hill to my parking place, take off my hip boots, put on dry shoes, pack up my stuff and head home. On the way, I was apt to stop at a convenience store for a coffee or something, briefly shoot the breeze with someone I happened to bump into and proceed on my way.

Once home, I’d unpack my equipment, hang it where it belonged and descend the stairs to the cellar nightcrawler tub. I’d pull back the leaves, throw in a couple pinches of moist coffee grounds, hand-comb them into the soil, dump in the leftover crawlers from my bait box, and cover them with leaves for a future day astream.

It’s sad that those joyous, carefree days seem like a fantasy when your free time vanishes during midlife. But you have to believe it’s only a temporary loss. And if you can convince yourself of that, you’re certain there’ll be another day.

A comforting thought.

The crescent moon cast a vertical smile over the southwest corner of a little hayfield where a doe and her fawn had been showing up often on summer eves. I had seen them many times in my nightly travels, consistently entering the field around dusk, behind the cover of a razor-thin hardwood stand some 30 yards from the forest’s edge. Why, I wondered many times, had that thin-faced, big-eared doe borne just one fawn; would have thought she’d has twins.

Indeed, on this cool, dry, pleasant evening, there she was, nervous tail, feeding in the fading light under that crescent moon, fawn standing erect 10 yards to her left, blending into the cover of a wild apple tree and the high brush beneath it. Then, to my astonishment, there was the twin I had fruitlessly searched for dozens of times before.

Also standing erect, on full alert to the sound of the oncoming vehicle, behind its mother and to her right, the twin looked like a statue, tail slightly curled under. The furtive one had obviously been there many times before, never once detected by these aging eyes.

It reminded me of that late afternoon about nine years ago when I was on stand not far away watching a well-worn run on the other side of a shallow ravine, back resting against a large red side-hill pine. I detected movement, focused my attention and, sure enough, whitetails, three of them, slowly feeding their way through the woods toward the mowing. As they made their way closer to me, I knew I was observing a doe and her fawns. The young ones were being led down that run by their mother, who would communicate with them by a flick of her tail, a curl of her ears and subtle sounds inaudible to me from 30 yards away.

The closest animal to me, a 70-pound fawn, maybe a button buck, was not as compliant as its twin. Feeding on low browse along the forest floor, it kept wandering down toward the base of the ravine, and the mother was not happy. You could just read the body language. Sensing danger, the mother wanted the disobedient one closer to her and its sibling. The little one wanted to explore. Little did it know that mother knew best.

Well, all three of those animals lived to see another sunrise, but the wayward one could have met its maker. What saved it was the fact that the hunter wasn’t interested in taking any of them.

Judging from what I’ve observed over the past three months, that fawn I’ve seen several times will be the wayward one this fall; its twin will be the cautious one. At least that’s the way I see it — probably a bull-headed young buck and his teacher’s-pet sister.

A neighbor and I were on our way to Halifax, Vt., Saturday morning when, coming around the corner to a small East Colrain produce farm, we were confronted by an unexpected catastrophe.

Farmer and friends were standing on the driveway below his hillside home, marooned from West Leyden Road by a muddy torrent as wide as Green River, maybe wider, tearing through his brookside pumpkin patch. I’m not exaggerating when I say you could have whitewater rafted through that meadow at around 11:15 a.m., helmet and flotation gear mandatory for survival. No lie, that wild — huge excitement for a little hilltop community dating back to the French & Indian Wars’ line of forts.

The potential natural disaster had already drawn a crowd of neighborhood characters by the time we arrived, including affable tie-dyed tree-man Blue Sky, “branch manager,” animated as usual, chatting with onlookers about the spectacle. It’s not every day an upland September meadow becomes a roaring river. Being familiar with the landscape, I immediately knew the cause. Decades-old beaver ponds a half-mile or more up the road, in a peaceful hollow once farmed by my Snow/Miller ancestors, had busted loose. Many times I had visited the overgrown, derelict farmstead north and east of that wetland to exercise and bathe my Springer Spaniels in the third of a series of at least four beaver ponds. I never traveled far enough back to get the exact count, but there were four I knew of.

Many times, as my dogs romped, I had remarked to whoever was accompanying me that all hell would break loose if a dam broke under the pressure of heavy rain. Well, it happened Saturday and was quite an event until the basin drained, sending a destructive pulse of water through East Colrain and into the Green River below, briefly polluting potential Greenfield drinking water with giardia and other harmful parasites or bacteria associated with beaver colonies.

When my friend and I returned from Halifax after 4 p.m. to inspect the damage, the roads and bridges had weathered the incident remarkably well, touch-up repair needed here and there. The damage was nowhere near as bad as the devastation that had occurred nearby, perhaps 10 years ago, above Camp Apex on Peckville Road in Shelburne. That rainstorm dam-break left a deep washout that closed the road for days, until it could be filled and repaved. Not so Saturday at Fort Lucas Road, where we drove over an intact post-flood culvert funneling the small stream under the road. Whoever built the hand-fitted stone collar surrounding that culvert should be proud of a job well done, because it proved miraculously capable of handling the ferocious flood that swallowed it without sweeping it away.

Sunday morning, I drove out past the old farmhouse and partway into an adjacent overgrown mowing with my wife, grandson and dogs to check it out. Nothing appeared to have changed from afar. I didn’t go all the way back to see precisely where the break had occurred, but the wetland looked undisturbed — dead, gray, triangular pine skeletons centered, hemlock and poplar along the lips, hardwood ridges forming a deep green V. But undoubtedly by then the industrious beavers, always fast and efficient, were already patching the hole.

On my way out, crossing the damaged land bridge, I looked upstream at the path of destruction. All I can say is that it’s fortunate no one was standing in the streambed that day, because they likely would not have survived.

”Yep, those are the beavers we protect,” said a sarcastic abutter, shaking his head, referring to state regulations adopted in 1996 forbidding leg-hold traps that once kept the potentially destructive wetland rodents in check. Yes, it’s true they create wetlands and habitat beneficial to fish and birds and wildlife. I understand that, and even support it to a point. But I must admit I’ve stood and observed that marsh and beaver ponds many times, thinking to myself how much nicer that hollow must have looked when my ancestors farmed it. I have pictured the land cleared, the hayfields scalped, tree lines following roads and stonewalls, meadow stream unobstructed and clean, probably pure enough to drink from, definitely squaretail water. A lot has changed since then.

In 10 more years, unless something is quickly done to reopen it as farmland or a clearing, that hollow will look a lot more like it did in 1740 than at any time since. The hardy Colonial Colrainites trapped the beavers, traded their pelts for supplies, drained the swamps, and built the fortified house known as Clark’s and Lucas’ fort. After the Native threat subsided in the 1760s came orchards, pastures and mowings, sugar bush and shacks, working farms with stately dwellings and barns, corncribs and henhouses, cider mills, distilleries and tanneries. Over time, most have been relegated to stone-clad craters, some larger than others. Soon this ancestral relic will join them in obscurity, buried under young forest that’ll rapidly grow old.

My people vanished long ago. Their farm’s following their path.