This year that forest was a little different.  Not in any way different from years when those pines had dropped their cones in the road but you are older now and more aware and it seems this year the cones are so many you can hardly believe your own eyes.  The crunching of them when you run them over, driving up that meandering driveway, just seems a lot louder.  Nature has a way of surprising you all the time even though you've seen those same gardens every spring and you've planted the very plants that surprise you.  Those same white pines that were like family all those years, surprised you this year because they are trying to tell you something. 

...Plum Islands biowarfare ties date back to World War II and Operation Paperclip, a top secret government program to shield Nazi scientists from trial or punishment by quietly bringing them over to the U.S. and giving them new identities and U.S. citizenship in exchange for working for the government and military.