As MassWildlife’s Western District stocking crews deposit netfuls of large, fresh and frisky trout along the upper Deerfield River this week, diehards are still ice-fishing at secluded upland ponds nearby. Well, at least I think there’s still enough ice left up there. “I hope so,” growled my buddy Killer, still a hard-charger at 72, when […]

One never knows when a topic tossed into the city square for public discussion will attract interest and spur feedback like last week’s subject — beech trees — did. Who knows why? It just did. Among the folks of both genders chiming in were a card-carrying historian/archaeologist, a couple of foresters — one a photographer […]

I have for many decades been fascinated by beech trees and beech stands — from the mature, elephant-skinned sentries standing tall and broad, to their understory infants immediately below, to the empty, thorny husks and the small, three-sided nuts they contain for posterity — all interesting and, when you probe the depths, perplexing in many […]