Whenever I write about local wildcats, it seems that the feedback locomotive gets rolling full-steam ahead. So it was no surprise that last week’s column drew a spike in reader email. Oh my! Can you imagine what’ll happen when I finally jump into that Petersham mountain-lion-attacks-horse tale, which I was aware of months before it […]

A noontime phone call from a neighbor, a brief conversation, a spin around the Internet and — Bingo! — another column in the making. It all unfolded quite by chance on Tuesday, after finishing a couple of morning tasks: first, a trip to Agway to buy dog and cat food and cedar shavings on senior-discount […]

There’s a little something for everyone — be they waterfowlers, anglers, paddlers, collectors, historians, anthropologists, designers, you name it — in the University of Minnesota Press’ recently published “Canoes: A Natural History in North America,” by Mark Neuzil and retired UMass/Amherst journalism professor Norman Sims, a familiar local whitewater enthusiast. This nice, sturdy, cloth hardcover […]

It didn’t take Jimmy Recore, 54, long to score — and score big … real big — right in his Poland neighborhood of Conway during the ongoing archery deer season. Yes, there he was, opening day and getting dark with 6 p.m. quickly approaching, positioned 12 to 14 feet high in his portable tree stand, […]