Raw and rainy, ripe for a soggy Wednesday walk, the backdrop bursting with flashy splashes of new fall color each day as drab, premature yellow maple leaves with dirty brown stains fall like feathers to the turf, never to attain their flame-orange splendor. I trust enough leaves will stay aloft to paint the sugarbush radiant orange and add brilliance to sunny landscapes.

Oh, how the dogs love rainy-day rambles, especially when I’m toting a shotgun, which ain’t far away, only a couple of weeks, in fact. Maybe I ought to purchase an online license. Can’t forget. I always used to buy a sporting license around New Year’s. Not anymore. Now I wait for fall to buy just a hunting license, which I may or may not use for deer. My deer-hunting dilemma surrounds the knee brace I must wear to trek the hardwood ridges. Four straps on the light brace made of a space-age alloy line up my worn, tattered, deformed joint to limit swelling and resulting pain. The problem is that the contraption carries body odor from daily use, a no-no when hunting alert animals sniffing the wind at all times. That said, wearing that brace the last time I went to my favorite stand two days before my older son’s death four years ago, twin bucks surprised me by trotting into the wind through noisy dry leaves right into my lap before I had time to shift my position and gun in their direction. There I sat, defeated and helpless, with two handsome antlered twins standing straight and alert nearly within spitting distance. So, true, stranger things have happened than deer presenting themselves to man wearing a sweat-soaked brace. But I like my chances better when scent-free or close to it, impossible wearing that brace necessitated by years of abuse sustained by stubbornly ignoring medical advice favoring conservative left-knee use. Hey, I was only given one left knee and plan to use it limber or lame, pain or no pain till my last day. Sorry.

Enough! What pulled me back to that memorable moment from my deer-hunting past, anyway? There are other things I want to touch upon before calling it a day — stuff like the Meadows moose, which has been spotted once that I know of by a man down the road from me; a deer-foraging shift that’s been quite obvious; and, hey, maybe a little bit about what I’m reading, the most recent of which appeared in my mailbox Tuesday and connected right into a couple of fresh reads vilifying Henry Ford, that poster boy of American industrialism, champion of capitalistic greed, friend of fascism, foe of organized labor and workers’ rights.

Regarding deer, well, they’re into acorns big time these days, leaving tell-tale crumbs everywhere along my crunchy path through waist-high, mellow-yellow timothy, its seed heads aching to explode onto fertile soil between a cornfield and thin woods lining an escarpment lip overlooking Green River floodplain. Yes, the deer have it good these days in the Greenfield Meadows flatlands, where last week I even found that a large moose print accompanying willy-nilly tracks of deer feeding under tall, broad oaks. In addition to the acorns underfoot, the four to six deer feeding there have sumptuous red and white clover, nutritious rye, and from the best I can tell, are devouring a little corn as well.

My first hint that the corn was ripe and ready came from Chubby, my 3-year-old male springer spaniel who began chomping down small ears last week. This week, I investigated further and found that something, presumably deer, was flattening single cornstalks to supplement their diet with an ear of corn here and there. When I discussed this development with a colleague and friend I call “Big Boiczyk” — whose family runs an adjacent produce farm and who will soon surrender his freedom to the holy institution of marriage — he suspected “coydogs,” not deer, an assessment I’m not sure I agree with. The “coydog” damage he described in his sweet corn did not match what I’m seeing in the thin silage cornfield I daily tour. He said coyotes rip down cornstalks and pull them out into the open to eat the cobs. The corn damage I’ve seen that Chubby has taken advantage of displays single rooted stalks lying flat in the field, not uprooted or lugged out of it. It looks like deer damage to me, perhaps coon, though minor, if not insignificant. When I catch Chub-Chub lying down to salvage a leftover cob, I tell him to “Give,” which he does, waiting patiently for me to husk and give it back. He likes that. Lily does, too. But I only take what raiders have left behind. It’s funny. Years back in that same agricultural strip, my dogs were pilfering cantaloupes. They’d roam the weedy field, pick a ripe, fragrant melon from its vine, run out into the hayfield carrying it high, lie down and eat and the whole damn thing, no waste. When I sheepishly apologized to the farmer one day in passing, he told me not to worry, he was too busy to pick them. In a week or two, he cleaned up what was left and everyone was happy.

Before I run out of space and depart, a quick reading recommendation for those of you still undecided about the controversial natural-gas pipeline they’re trying to run through our forests and across our rivers and streams, not to mention straight through Clarkdale Fruit Farm. Pick up the newest Rolling Stone magazine that arrived at my home Tuesday, comic Brit newsman John Oliver on the cover. In it you’ll find a long exposé about the infamous, diabolical, gazillionaire Koch brothers. Because of local connections I won’t mention, I must be careful what I say about the Kochs, but they have owned as many gas and oil pipelines as anyone, and you really ought to read about their negligent maintenance practices aimed at maximizing profit. Is Kinder Morgan any different? Who knows? But do we really want to find out? These folks are cut from the same greedy cloth as old Henry Ford — air, water, croplands and citizen-health be damned.

Could it be simple, random coincidence after more than a week of reading about Ford’s greed, and being just 20 pages from finishing Upton Sinclair’s “The Flivver King,” that into my mailbox was delivered this provocative Koch Brothers piece? No! I don’t believe it, have stopped accepting such developments as coincidence. I think this stuff happens for a reason.

If you hunt truth with an open mind, it can find you in many ways, yet there’s never enough, especially for the fools who arrogantly dismiss it with a smug weak-knee jerk.