What a difference a day makes in the game called turkey hunting. Ask 34-year-old Sunderland hunter and Northampton native Ray Cichy II. He killed what may prove to be Massachusetts’ second-largest gobbler taken since records have been kept. Cichy’s 5-year-old trophy tom, taken last week in Hatfield, registered at just under 85 points, according to […]

I wasn’t taking notes, can’t recall whether is was cloudy or clear, dry or wet, but do remember well how it all unfolded. I was down at Sunken Meadow, walking the dog, spring sprung, observing trees and buds and ferns and skunk cabbage and whatever else interested me, even watched bluebirds, a male and a […]

Eli Terry just struck noon from its dining-room shelf and here I sit, fresh off a few hours of procrastination, still waiting for that final stocking report — the most important one, of course. Actually, I guess I’m stretching it a bit to call my morning activity procrastination. Reading is seldom that mindless, especially reading […]

A sighting, speculation and a rumor: that’s all I’ve got. Guess it’ll have to do. First the sighting — two deer, likely does, one larger than the other. I spotted them after 7 Saturday morning. They were feeding in the fresh green stubble of a spring straw field as I took a hard right toward […]

Overnight rain had a remarkable effect on my yard Wednesday, lifting my spirits on a gray, dreary April morning. Spring can do that to a man, even one t’other side of his peak. What immediately drew my attention on the way out to the kennel was a lilac bush along the western perimeter of my […]

When Bill Hubbard died last week at 91, the Pioneer Valley lost its dean of antique dealers. With his passing went a moving, breathing repository of knowledge to which I once had privileged access. I usually took his advice as gospel, and on the rare occasion I strayed — once — I got scalded. Lesson […]

You never know where a brief walk with the dogs will take you. I finally found my way back to Sunken Meadow late last week for my first visit of the New Year. The field is wide open, minus a slim cuff of granular corn-snow along the southern edge, where the sun is obstructed in […]

What for a man to do? It’s mid March, cabin fever fading, that of spring ascending like sweet sap from deep-seated roots, yet winter still, snow too deep to drive or even park off-road, comfortable walking for snowshoers and snowmobile-trail hikers only. Soon, annoying mud will appear. But I guess we all have our ways […]

The roars of March, brought by our first hard rains in months, emanated from my backyard early this week — one a constant, soothing roar, the other sudden, violent and threatening, like a bear trying to chase off Old Man Winter; one welcoming spring, the other expelling winter. The continuous roar was the brook that […]