It’s early summer and wildlife sightings are coming at me like bugs at a streetlamp. One, emanating from an old South Deerfield friend of my late sons, Gary and Rynie, reported five nice whitetail bucks in velvet feeding and enjoying each other’s company in a lush, clover-laced hayfield. “Is that unusual?” he wrote. “We’re not […]

It was a gray, wet, low-pressure Tuesday afternoon, about 4 o’clock, and I was wearing light, fast-drying athletic shorts and Classic-Clog Crocs, running the dogs through saturated, waist-high grass. Yeah, yeah, I know, it’s tick season; and, yes, I have been finding the annoying little buggers lately. Saturday, I even medicated the dogs for the […]

Amazing. Incredible. Astounding. Astonishing. Miraculous. Or, maybe just plain unlikely. Those are the adjectives that snugly fit my geriatric English springer spaniel gun dog Lily’s recuperative powers as she closes in on her 13th birthday. This biddable pet never ceases to amaze me as I observe her during our daily rambles that run deep. What […]

It was the last day of shotgun deer season, a Saturday, half-past noon, and the glare of a low, bright sun in the blue southern sky was blinding, even when filtered through the skeletal, gray, naked, wetland forest bordering riverside meadows. I wasn’t hunting. Just walking the dogs on our daily route, where deer are […]

Monday morning. The name Shirley Scott on my caller-ID. Hmmmmm? Who’s that? With preplanned Monday-morning chores to complete ahead of Tuesday’s impending soaking rains, I delayed the return call till dusk, around 4 p.m. Ms. Scott answered. I identified myself. “Oh, hi, thanks for returning my call,” she said with palpable friendliness in her voice. […]