An interesting crosstown trip to the feed store after my morning walk, a behemoth faraway bear, many familiar people, my ears buzzing with swarms of feedback about this and that, all of it pertaining to recent topics aired out right here in this space. Why not a little ramble?

No, no, no! Fear not. I’ll keep to the out of doors, sort of, which is about as confined as I prefer to be, no razor-wire fences, no foreboding “Keep Out!” warnings, please.

So let’s begin with a playful little apology to the place that shows up in my checkbook as the acronym GFCE, which means Greenfield Farmers Cooperative Exchange. That’s where I buy my pet food and anything else I need that’s sold by the local store run by local families. Why? Well, because, given a choice, I always support local economy and stay away from corporate big-box establishments. Just me, I suppose, and not the least bit ashamed to admit my local bias. I’m from here. My soul evolved here. Plus, I happen to know folks who own stock in the place, good people I’m happy to support. I can’t pretend to have similar loyalty to the Walton boys from the Sunny South, no matter how much cheaper they sell stuff.

Anyway, I went to this popular local establishment on a whim one morning this week to buy food and cedar bedding for the dogs, which I had just walked on a cool, pleasant day, plenty cool enough for them to safely remain in their crates a little longer than usual as I shopped. When I walked up to the counter, female employees I didn’t think knew me from Adam recognized me and started right in with, “Hey, you caused quite a commotion around here. You wouldn’t believe the number of people who asked us what you feed your dogs.”

The ladies, smirking, were referring to something written here recently about the earthy-crunchy, corn-, glucose- and filler-free dry food I had been feeding my pets with extraordinary results at the recommendation of a helpful employee named Jeff.

“Sorry,” I grinned, “but I didn’t name the product because I didn’t want to be accused of promoting brand names.”

They understood.

When I turned to leave, standing right there to my left was Ernie Kelley from Conway. I hadn’t seen the man in years, had coached his son, Loren, in youth baseball and basketball. Then my brother coached the kid at Frontier. Those youth-coaching days are to me distant memories by now, but that didn’t stop us from having an enjoyable chat that moved from the counter to the parking lot to the warehouse storage racks. As we moved from one subject to the next out on the pavement, Frank Karas, an old South Deerfield friend, passed accompanied by his daughter and new grandson. I didn’t have a chance to talk to them but would have liked to, his daughter home briefly from England.

But enough of that, and, no, I still won’t name the pet foods I feed my dogs and cat. I can, however, tell you there are many products out there that fit the earthy-crunchy profile I speak of, and pet owners who desire peak performance and health in their four-legged friends should give them a try. Trust me, you’ll see the difference.

As for the big bear, well, email photos of it came to me from longtime South Deerfield reader Patricia Potter, who has intermittently chimed in on this and that over the years. This time, presumably because she knew Bay State bear season was underway, she sent shots of a massive brown grizzly bear recently killed in self-defense by Alberta, Canada, hunters who, quite by accident, lured it in with an elk call. If you trust the story accompanying the photos taken from many angles, the beast that was well known to local ranchers — it had killed three horses, five cows and a penful of chickens at the very least — walked to within 10 yards of the caller before his alert partner spotted and killed it with five rapid-fire shots from his .338 Winchester Magnum rifle. The big bruin stood 11¾ feet tall on its hind legs and weighed 1,300 pounds. Just for fun, I forwarded the photos to a couple of bear-hunting buddies, warning that they had better hope nothing like that ever came their way in the woods.

Another subject that drew higher-than-expected feedback was last week’s hard- and soft-mast assessment based on what I’ve been seeing daily on my bottomland meadow romps. The chatter emanated from the uplands, where reliable sources say the apple crop is no better than what I’m seeing lining agricultural plots. “I’ve seen it with my own eyes just a couple of miles above you,” said one trusted old pal on the phone. Then another source from the neighborhood of the historic Uncle Abel Dinsmore House in Conway wrote to say the apple crop there is sparse because of a late frost that froze tender spring blossoms.

When I responded to my Conway source, an Amherst native, with a tease that it wouldn’t be difficult to lure me into exploring Guinea Gulch, a forested marsh near him which I suspect to be a place of “high spirit” on the ancient Native American landscape, he begged off, saying he’s headed for China and unavailable. In the next breath, he suggested I look up an old trapper I’ve known most of my life. He couldn’t have suggested a better man. I bet he had no clue I knew him. Not only that, but I can say without hesitation that there is no one on earth with whom I would rather probe that deep, dense, verdant upland bog and aquifer than the man he recommended. Once an artistic stone mason, now a clever handyman working toward a state pension, my late son Ryan often ran into him and considered him “cool.”

Which reminds me of how much I’m missing Rynie. Like older brother Gary, who died three years before him, he’s gone, not a thing I can do about it. What I can, and pledge to both late sons I will do is continue placing one inquisitive foot in front of the other while following my life path, the forward pull growing stronger by the day, the week, the month. Who knows where it’ll lead? Who cares?

Somehow I get the idea my next stop will be into Guinea Gulch, that hidden sanctuary few choose to roam — wet, wild and saturated with meaning and significance in this hollow, tweeting, texting, twerking land that’s lost its way and seems destined for destruction.

This trip I won’t be looking for deer or bears or moose or grouse. No, I’ll be hunting native whispers I can’t decipher but can follow. Sometimes whispers like that can lead you where you want to go.