An orange dawn crept in over the faraway Belchertown hills, first a faint hue then a bright sliver that, within a half-hour of peeking over the horizon, burst into a blinding orange sphere. Quarter past 7 on a Whately hardwood ridge. An old idyllic haunt of mine reaching back to my untethered teens, a friend […]

There’s nothing like wood heat for my taste. But if the wood isn’t right, well, it’s another story altogether. Then there’s real potential for problems, which is my current predicament, quite annoying. I’ve just brushed off from a trip to the woodshed, a place where I’ve spent far too much time lately, trying to make […]

A pale, yellow, crescent moon cast a wry, toothless grin from the clear, southern, predawn sky, remindful that it wasn’t going to be easy. The message was unnecessary. For me, it seldom is. But there was reason to be optimistic on this, the first Friday of muzzleloader deer season. A discovery made late the previous […]

When I think of squaretails, native squaretails, our royal native trout, I always think back to the monster, circa 1970, being lugged up the hill home on a stringer by a boy of 8 or 10, tail dragging on the pavement, hot summer eve, accompanied by his older brother. It was caught in a local […]

Different strokes for different folks — a threadbare cliché pedantic editors caution against, a principle I generally agree with. Clichés are indeed boring and unimaginative, a lazy-writer’s tool that should be avoided. But there are exceptions to every rule, and who would know that better than I, a rule-breaker from way back? So, given the […]

I often tell anyone willing to listen that once I reach the top of the steep, mile-long hill behind my home, I consider myself to be in southern Vermont, even though the state line is actually 10 miles in the distance. When you hop the crest of the hill up there, you’ve entered a pastoral […]

A couple of wildlife incidents to report from the home front, one involving a bear related to a bigger story, the other an otherwise insignificant little skunk. First the bear, which appeared out of nowhere in my back yard on the gray evening of Aug. 16, just before 8:30, me in the shower, my wife […]

The Magnolia sisters, Star and Saucer, white and pink, have opened their furry fists to reach for the warm April sun, mimicked by cousins Daffodil and Forsythia, who introduce radiant yellows to brighten the days. Never appears a surer sign that spring turkey season is here. I happened upon a boss gobbler and four deer […]

I enjoyed a brief visit Tuesday from reader Edward M. Wells, an ardent defender of wild brook trout and critic of the Connecticut River Atlantic salmon program who’s been once featured and occasionally mentioned in this space. The retired educator, enjoying tranquil retirement on a gentle Leyden hillside, brought me a reading assignment in the […]