After a long, frigid, snowy winter, spring is peeking over partially exposed stonewalls poking through snow beneath naked hardwoods gathering bright midday sun on southern slopes. Soon, on these same sun-splashed hillsides, the first maple sap will flow freely as dense deer yards break up and scatter hither and yon. In fact, sap buckets are […]

Deer, snow, coyotes and, um, a hilltown homer, that’s where we’re headed today. Yes, more interesting feedback, most of it concerning last week’s column about icy snow spelling deer doom. One respondent was a state cop, another a kid I once coached in South Deerfield, the third an old Hampshire League ballplayer who recalled an […]

Our snow-cover got more dangerous for deer this week, just as we enter the most vulnerable time of year for the hoofed creatures. I can evaluate snow conditions when observing my dogs on their daily routine, which has been dramatically altered the past few weeks, deep, crusty snow complicating matters. When I daily open the […]

Seems I just can’t abandon the topic of oak trees, red and white, how to differentiate. This week I will share comments from a wildlife biologist, an arborist and my own brother-in-law, with whom I quite spontaneously broached the subject on the phone Wednesday morning. He, the owner of a large, paradisiacal retirement spread in […]

Wow! Quite a reaction to last week’s piece about my difficulties identifying by sight the different oaks in our forest. Criticism, advice and gracious hands-on offers to teach me proper recognition of red, white and chestnut oaks came my way in rapid fashion. The feedback came from hunters and gatherers, hikers and foresters, ladies and men. Clearly, it’s high […]

A six-foot snow bank at a dead end marked the beginning of our quarter-mile trek through deep, fluffy, toe-dragging snow. We skirted the pile and followed a convenient foot-wide deer path down the wooded trail into a peaceful hollow before ascending to the crest of a gentle hill long ago cleared by and named after […]

Last week’s “What deer?” column drew reader comments, some written, another phoned, all throwing in their two-cents’ worth about the status of our Franklin County deer herd. Not one painted a rosy picture. The freshest response came by cell phone Tuesday evening around 5. It was Phil Phillips, an old chum from my hometown of […]

What to make of the 2010 deer season? That’s the question that’s been bugging me for the past few weeks. Not a scientific analysis. Just trying to make sense of observations I am not academically trained to interpret. A deer expert I am not. Far from it, in fact. The only kind of field research […]

This is a tale of perseverance and Thanksgiving, that of octogenarian Richard Phelps, known to his family as “Ritt,” Vermonter to the core, a throwback from way back. Phelps claims he’s applied for a Vermont moose permit every year since they became available “and they finally gave me one at prit’near 90.” Or, at least, […]