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. “I’ve been reading your column for many years, have wanted to visit many times before and finally called. I’m so happy you called back.”

I had listened to her message and knew her key topic of concern. So, at least I knew where to start. But as it turned out, and not surprisingly, she had other subjects for discussion as well, including setting me straight on where Russell Dodge, featured last week in this space as an Ashfield resident, really lived.

“He’s my Buckland neighbor,” Scott reported. “In fact, that scabby-headed turkey he described was spotted staggering down to the foot of my driveway. I live on Orcutt Hill. The Ashfield line is not far away.”

Oooops! Sorry, Russell. Buckland it is. Not Ashfield. I should have known … or checked.

Returning briefly to that pathetic turkey, Ms. Scott says she has no shortage of the regal feathered creatures around her rural West County home but has seen only that one scabby-headed specimen, probably infected with the LPDV virus, or maybe turkey pox, both of which produce scabby heads.

“I wasn’t aware of those viruses affecting turkeys until I read about them in your column,” she continued. “Although that’s the only one I’ve ever seen, at this time of year, I often see anywhere from 30 to 50 turkeys in my yard. So, I’ll keep my eyes open. I hope that disease doesn’t spread.”

We quickly transitioned to the topic she had worked up the nerve to call about — the potential of forest fires from haphazard hunters tossing cigarettes butts while touring the heavily hunted hills around her home. She was speaking specifically of Orcutt, Drake and Putt’s hills, all popular deer-, bear- and turkey-hunting grounds dating back beyond her childhood days as a member of the Townsley family living in nearby Apple Valley, Ashfield, just a hop, skip and a jump south and west from her current residence.

“I was out walking (Sunday) on Orcutt Hill and it was really dry, the leaves crunching underfoot, and I was concerned that one misplaced cigarette butt could quickly ignite and burn down the whole hill,” she cautioned. “I thought it would be a good idea for you to write something about it in your column, reminding hunters to be awfully careful when smoking. Even after a heavy rain, the wind comes blowing through here and dries things up very quickly.”

Yes, indeed it is a fine idea to pass along Ms. Scott’s fire concerns, given what I myself have seen as a pheasant hunter working familiar coverts that are noticeably drier and crunchier than in recent memory. Not only that, but I often hunt with a smoker who’s taken more than one break to puff one down as I handle Chub-Chub through dense cover. I know when he’s smoking because he squats down and sits back on his haunches when he does so, with no near-catastrophic events to thus far report. But that comes as no surprise. Old Killer is an experienced woodsman, who obviously takes great care to extinguish his butts before moving on.

The many seed clouds I’ve accidentally sucked down my windpipe in high cover since the start of pheasant season is one indication of how dry it is. But more so I have been reminded of the drought in some coverts by my dogs’ reaction to a lack of water in brooks they have always sought out for refreshing drinks. Many are dry this year, which can affect a dogs’ performance. Gun dogs in need water overheat, lose energy and have a reduced sense of smell, the most important sense for locating and following fleeing birds. Thus, I have this year eliminated some trusty coverts, focusing instead on those with available water, be it from beaver ponds or streams still running strong, though not as strong as usual.

The best water sources are those that gundogs can walk right out into and submerge themselves as they drink. Such streams or ponds providing not only a remedy for thirst but also a cooling agent to relieve an overheated animal. I have literally witnessed a field-trial dog, accustomed to instant gratification during training and trials, break down to the point where she needed to be carried exhausted out of the field after an all-out hour of hunting through dense cover. Not a pretty sight, and not one anyone would want to repeat often. A dog could keel over and die from such exhausting events.

“How’s Lily?” asked Ms. Scott, a woman who has never laid eyes upon my 12-year-old gundog who’s finally showing her age. It’s truly incredible how many people have asked me that question the past month or so, most of them readers who’ve never met Lily but have read about her geriatric decline this fall right here.

I first speculated that Lily may be dealing with problems resulting from mini-strokes or TIA’s. But then several readers whose older dogs had over the years been diagnosed with “old-dog syndrome” or vestibular disease wrote to inform me that the vertigo symptoms I described were associated with it, an inner-ear issue that affects balance.

Well, this week the mystery deepened. Out of the blue, the bounce in Lily’s step improved dramatically and she’s running hard, jumping up into the truck bed and, from the wag of her tail, appears to be happy as Old Grannie Mae chit-chatting at the Senior Center’s tea and crumpets social. Hey, in dog’s age Lily’s pushing 90. Maybe she’s just getting old and just has her good days and bad. Even that is sad, though, if you dwell on it, because back in her heyday, she never had a bad day, punishing dense cover like it wasn’t there to produce showy, cackling flushes followed by lightning-fast retrieves from thorny wetland tangles.

Back to the dry, waterless issues confronting many New Englanders these days, Ms. Scott says the woodland brooks and ice pond above her home are bone dry, which shouldn’t surprise anyone who’s toured local woods regardless of the elevation. As a result, she says she hasn’t seen many deer around her home, but has seen them elsewhere, “I think because you see them where there’s water,” she opined.

Another example to underscore drought issues reared its head recently on Ms. Scott’s property, in her backyard water gardens fed by a prolific well that just keeps on giving. “We had otters showing up looking for fish,” she said. “It’s that bad in the woods up here. Dry as dry can be. A real tinderbox.”

Before wrapping up our conversation, I wanted to get Ms. Scott’s impressions of the mast crop up in the highlands that I really have not gotten a chance to evaluate myself. From her description, the upland situation seems to mirror that of the flatlands. But let her describe it. No card-carrying botanist, ecologist or forester, Ms. Scott is graced with homespun sense-of-place logic, which often trumps classroom learning from even the finest schools.

“There are plenty of acorns, which seem to have come down earlier than usual this year,” she reported. “The (commercial) apple crop is OK, but nothing like last year’s, and there don’t seem to be any wild apples to speak of. We had some early wild apples, but they quickly dried up and fell. Not a good year for wild apples. Too dry, I think.”

Take it to the bank, Ma’am. But just a word of caution: Don’t say it too loud.

Why?

Because soon global-warming denying bible-thumpers will be in charge in the US of A.

Oh my.