It started with the lupine.Last spring, I started taking the hound to Thompson’s Field, a 57-acre conservation area off Route 137 in East Harwich managed by the Harwich Conservation Trust.

I’ve always thought Nantucket was rather flat — elevation-wise, that is. Our highest point is the Madaket Landfill, and after that is Altar Rock in the moors.

We all mark seasons in different ways, often using holidays like Labor Day past, Thanksgiving upcoming. For me, the circle always wheels around the constellation Orion.

I was leading a tour out in ’Sconset the Thursday before Labor Day when a local eyed us warily and said, “Summer’s over, it’s time for you people to leave.” Ouch! Now Labor Day has come and gone, the curtain falling on summer.

My chum, who these days walks the Outer Beach more often than I do, commented that “high tides are reaching further up the beach than they used to.”

The hound has gifted me a new image of hope. And it looks like an otter.

Where do you seek the soul of Cape Cod? The pounding surf on the Outer Cape? The stalwart beacon of Coast Guard Light? The broad stretch of the Great Marsh?

It’s August on Nantucket, and to find a place where you will be alone and undisturbed, you need one of two things. You either need a four-wheel drive or a boat. The other Saturday, thanks to a good friend and some borrowed kayaks, we set off from Barrett’s Pier and headed for the Madaket Ditch.

Among Cape Cod’s remarkable attributes is a way of surfacing when and where you least expect it – associations, affiliations, allusions, connections, a single degree of separation among strangers.