Tried the “she loves me, she loves me not” experiment with a number of different wildflowers today and was shocked to learn that she loves me not. Can this be true? And just who is this mystery woman?

It’s astonishing to me that every year just when it gets hot enough outside so that you need nice shady spots, the trees grow leaves and provide nice shady spots. This is nature at its best.

Today really does feel like the first day of summer here in Connecticut (as it’s supposed to on Memorial Day Sunday), a time when my mind drifts to the shore and to the view seen in the photo at the top of this page. It was taken from the roof of a cottage called The Decoy in Quonnochontaug, R.I., for many years the summer retreat of my wife’s family, the Grahams. As our three children were growing up, it was the ideal place for us to go every summer for at least a week, and maybe more if we could get it. As soon as our car hit the gravel drive, the kids were free to bike to the beach, play tennis, play baseball, go crabbing or try to trap rabbits down in the yard seen here. I was free to play in the surf, read for blissfully uninterrupted hours at a time and take outdoor showers in the sunshine. We went every summer for more than 20 years, and part of it will always be inside of me. Our family will be heading once again to Quonnie, but not to The Decoy, in late July, so we’ve got that going for us. The photo, by the way, was taken in early September a couple of years ago; the brown colors around the freshwater pond and the bare branches on the pear tree, at left, reflect the effects of an enormous salt spray sent up from the ocean beyond during a hurricane a month or so earlier.