Category Archives: Grandkids

Grandchildren do the damnedest things.

Fishing Fantasy

Wouldn’t you know it. Over the weekend, I dug out a Sewell N. Dunton & Sons Tonkin-cane flyrod I’ve never cast astream, attached an Orvis CFO IV reel of chartreuse, floating, weight-forward 6 fly-line and took a few out-of-sight backyard casts for old-time’s sake. I guess I was feeling it, seeing hints of green on […]

Fishing Season Is Here

In the old days, anglers would have been gearing up this week for the traditional April 15 opening day of trout-fishing season, which this year falls on Saturday. It would have been a big day for fathers and sons, grandfathers and grandsons, fishing buddies or just plain secretive, solitary anglers fishing from a boat or […]

A Dark, Sunny Place

Spring is the season of hope and optimism, fertility and life, mating and nesting, buds and sprouts; also spontaneity, which unexpectedly seized me noontime Sunday. It all begins Saturday night at 10, returning home from day two of “Writing Naturally,” a three-day environmental-writing workshop led by “Orion” magazine editor H. Emerson Blake. The circle discussions […]

Hunting Forward, Looking Back

Whew! With last week’s summer-like 80-degree weather behind us, let the pheasant season begin. Not that I’ve been pounding the coverts this week compared to days of old. No, not even close. But I did finally get out, did meet Frontier Regional School baseball coach Chris “Skinny” Williams for our first afternoon engagement, did give […]

Chewier Than Saltwater Taffy

We’re standing inside a reconstructed 400-year-old trading post along the south shore of Cape Cod Canal — impressive, exposed, hand-hewn oak beams overhead — talking to a wise, trim, attractive, copper-toned Native American woman guide. Grandsons Jordie and Arie, 10 and nearly 7, are fiddling around with soft beaver and otter pelts, wampum jewelry and […]

Rock Dam’s Most Important Component Is Long Gone

A hectic five or six days it was. Yes, a bit of a whirlwind leading up to and culminating this past weekend. In-laws converging from here, there and everywhere. Places like central Maine, the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont and Guatemala. A strong hint of NYC in the air emitted by the Northeast Kingdom-ites, Sixties back-to-the-earthers […]

Worthwhile Walk

The tomatoes are in the ground, the rhubarb is tall, ripe and a tad tart, asparagus reaches to the heavens, robin-egg shells are underfoot, the smell of red clover is a sweet reminder of the summer to come, and things are starting to happen in the wild kingdom. Just the other night, approaching 8 on […]

Splashback

Do rivers speak? Well, if you listen. Cool, sunny Sunday morning, 10-ish, variable wind gusting to stir small, random oak-leave twisters out in the open along the north wood line of a closed, two-acre meadow. A splendid day for a walk with the dogs — nose-dominant beasts that rely on winds to deliver information that […]

Springtime Buzz

Illuminated in a high, bright morning sun, it and a refreshing south breeze in my face, there it lay, clear as day: my trodden trail carved into a short March-brown hayfield, the thin, angled depression still easily discernible after a long, cold, snowy winter freeze, no foot-traffic I’m aware of in quite some time. I […]

Hunters Moon

The equinox has passed and the Hunter’s Moon is big and bright. The time’s right to write about the new bear-harvest record. But, no, even though I probably should begin with that tidbit, it happened in September and the press release arrived last week at deadline so, in my world, it’s old news by now. […]

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