The orchard grass is in places chest-high, with fragrant pink weigela bushes in bloom, turkey season winding down and shad running like gangbusters leading up to Memorial Day Weekend. I just discovered that the annual Fort No. 4 reenactment in Charlestown, N.H., is next weekend. Can’t wait. I think I’ll take both grandsons this time. […]

A wet, sticky week. Nesting season. Signs everywhere. Just this morning, Wednesday, on our daily romp, the dogs and I bumped into an average-sized snapping turtle of the most ornery countenance in a shallow puddle not far from a beaver pond. Chubby found it, knew better, barked and kept his distance. Lily really didn’t bother […]

Steamy and sticky it was for our Wednesday-morning walk, the dogs now kenneled and my brow still perspiring from the romp around Sunken Meadow, where we caught the sights, the sounds, the scents, the sweet smell of spring overwhelming, four interesting mushrooms, large and showy, sprouted along the fallen trunk of a chestnut oak. I […]

Life was good, the weather fine, a cool, stiff south wind making our walk pleasant indeed as random thoughts ran through my consciousness, not unlike the dogs sliding in and out of Sunken Meadow’s dense wetland perimeter. Driving in, the two Canada geese Chubby’s been playing with for months were for the first time in […]

Here I sit for the second time today, just couldn’t get started on my first attempt, distracted, too many options. To remedy the little stalemate, I decided to load up the dogs and take a walk through the twin sunken meadows, which always seem to lift me to a better place. When I returned a […]

The sports desk flashed the green light Tuesday night, said Wednesday’s local schedule was thin indeed. “Oh good,” I thought. “Now I can go right to town on that column I started Monday and revisited Tuesday.” So, proceed with caution. I have been known to get carried away. Which reminds me. I was in my own little […]

I can see the rain pouring down outside, hear it splashing off the flagstone terrace. I knew I should have thrown that whole cord of wood in this morning. Blame the wife, an easy, unjustified target. Up just after 7, I made coffee, fed the fire, got dressed and immediately went to gather wood and […]