Tuesday morning. Gray and wet. Forecast: clear and cool later, a great time to go out back, get the dogs and break free for a robust hunt through a saturated bottomland swamp of my choice. My guess is that it’ll be t’other side the Connecticut River.

Lily and Chubby are restless. Chub-Chub was limping Monday and I left them both home to hunt over sister Sarah, who I sold locally last year. A lean, mean, leggy liver and white, her sleek, aristocratic profile in dominant bright white gives her a flashy presence in a tangled upland marsh. And as I observed her, compared her to her brother, no slouch in his own right, I even got a taste of a new hilltown covert I had heard about but never hunted. It’s my kind of place, quintessential New England landscape, the cover a little sparse but adequate, especially the orchard. I’ll stop right there, though, would hate to make the site easily identifiable.

As I stood looking south at peaks familiar to me from the opposite direction, it occurred to me how different perspectives can radically alter identical views. Me, well, I look at the  mowings, the web-like sugar-bush tubing, distant peaks, thin treelines between fields, and I pray the scenery never changes, is somehow protected from dozers and dump trucks. The Mitt Romneys of the world? Well, totally different. They want to know the cost of 500 acres in such a pretty place. Then, with the figure fresh in mind, they quickly compute how many times they could double their investment with a cul-de-sac here, a culvert or stone-arch bridge there, stately, well-spaced McMansions scattered about the hillsides, all with tasteful four-season landscaping and million-dollar views. I’m not saying my perspective is any better than theirs, just that I’m not wired like them. I guess I’m condemned to struggle from check to check, valuing preservation and conservation over investment and profit, education over capitalization. Just me, I guess. I must be dumb.

Which reminds me: This will be my last column of the year. My annual December vacation is a week away. It always starts on Thanksgiving and goes through Christmas. I once used the extended time off to chase deer and catch up on random chores around the house. Not anymore. Yeah, I still typically get my last couple cords of wood into the shed and do, when I feel like it, take my gun for a walk through sacred woods I cherish, exploring, comparing, reading sign, assessing the prospects. If I stumble into a good setup with plentiful sign, feel confident and ultimately put meat in the freezer, great! If not, well, that’s OK, too. I refuse to make an anxiety-ridden project of deer hunting, avoid putting any pressure on myself. I have nothing to prove. I’ll still be a man if I don’t shoot a deer. Sure, I like salubrious venison chops, and I love the anticipation, the optimism of hunting a fresh snow, walking quietly during a light rain, and I truly enjoy melting into the habitat like a silent owl perched in a tall shagbark hickory, watching, listening, exploring each subtle sound and distant movement. But if I stand up just before dark, take three or four steps toward my truck and kick out an approaching deer, even an antlered buck, I won’t lose any sleep over it. No. I’ll just return home, air out my clothing on hangers in the open carriage shed, make a half-pot of coffee, fix something healthy to eat and settle in with a good book about Native Americans, old revolutionaries, the war of the sexes — ancient, timeless subjects I want to understand, apply to the present. Some people who exhaust themselves in solitary treestands night after night have no clue what makes a man like me tick. But that’s OK. Why worry about it? I’m cool with their priorities. They ought to respect mine.

In recent weeks I’ve come to know and enjoy one of many fascinating artists tucked away in the Hampshire/Franklin hills late friend Bill Hubbard, dean of Pioneer Valley antique dealers, claimed were “honeycombed with important and interesting people.” This new friend, a loyal reader and, better still, a high-school dropout, is just such a man. You look at what he creates with his bare hands and imagination and think, “Wow, what talent! What does that say about the schools he rejected?” Yet now, with the economy sagging and money tight, he and many of his ilk are struggling to make ends meet. When I sit at my table and talk to him, on and on we go, various subjects, compatible in many areas. Then he’s gone, toting off an old mirrored sconce and a post lantern in need of repair. I wonder why it is that honest, humble souls must struggle while vulture capitalists thrive, live in whichever of their five palatial homes tickles their fancy at the moment, and squirrel away more cash than their greatest of grandchildren could ever spend by orchestrating and profiting from others’ demise. I guess it’s for the same reason people who can’t play, coach, can’t write, edit, can’t do, teach. Such folks are best at telling their bosses what they want to hear while perfecting the art of shameless self-promotion. It’s crazy-making and quite eschewed. We put our phonies and thieves on Chamber of Commerce pedestals and harangue our artists, our thinkers as weirdos. It’s nothing new. Just the way it is. The way it always has been, it seems, in Western civilization. Look at all the great people who have over the ages suffered at the hands of power and greed and injustice. Give me this sort any day to surround myself with in retirement, not clock-punching bores and yes men who beat their wives and kick their pets in the comforts of home, then sit in the front row for Sunday worship.

But enough of that. A flood of email feedback arrived last week to inform me that bowhunting’s been slow, acorns and apples scarce indeed. Interesting. I have not searched hard but have seen acorns around. Not so with apples, especially wild ones, which I agree are scarce. The prevailing wisdom says the rut is late because of unseasonably warm temperatures. I don’t know about that, either, suspect that temperature has little to do with male desire. The Rutting Moon? Now, that I believe in. The second full moon after the Autumnal Equinox, the Rutting Moon appeared on Oct. 29, now long gone. In fact, the new moon appeared this week. Who knows? Maybe this Full Beaver Moon of Nov. 28 will rev things up. Know what that means? That bucks may be roaming and vulnerable when shotgun season opens on Nov. 26. So maybe it’ll be a good year for being in the right place at the right time while taking a break against a big red oak during woodland, gun-toting travels. If so, superb! If not, aaah, I can live with it. Hunting is, to me, R&R, not work, and definitely not competition.

So, unless something unforeseen slaps me upside the head while I’m vacationing, I’ll see you after Christmas. Can’t pretend I’m not anxiously anticipating calling my own shots for a month, a dress rehearsal of sorts for looming retirement, which ain’t far off. Trust me, I won’t be one of those guys who doesn’t know what to do with himself with formal work in the rearview. I have much to say that a family paper doesn’t want to print.

Soon, it’ll be no holds barred. I can’t wait.

Gray and raw, storm brewing, stiff wind blowing from the frigid north: perfect for hunting on the day following an election I’m happy with. So here I sit, dry-docked, pinned to this weekly chore, thinking of late buddy Tommy Valiton, a man who glowed with a boy’s enthusiasm every time he exited his red truck in my driveway to chase pheasants.

I miss that warm-hearted, crew-cut Marine and high school coach for many reasons not related to politics, which we typically disagreed on but could still discuss in a civil manner. He would’ve been a Romney man, I think, but we wouldn’t have dwelt on that, maybe just touched on it before fluttering off to more agreeable topics. What I miss most are Tommy’s deer-hunting insights, especially his telephone alerts to bowhunters who had bagged monster bucks that had hilltown coffee shops abuzz. From our frequent evening chats and hunts each fall, I would know what stage of the rut bucks were in, what the does were up to, and whatever else he was observing from his productive tree perches, always helpful information for a man assembling a weekly column like mine. Of course, back then, a Tommy-tip would spark a quick call to familiar checking-station sources who’d confirm his tales, often furnishing additional anecdotes to spice the flavor. Yes, those were the good old days. Free and easy. Spontaneous. Exactly how I like it. A different story these days, when I’m forced through a stifling bureaucratic process that demands clearance from a state screening agency. To be perfectly honest, this annoying intermediary has never denied my requests, but check-station personnel have been told not to release hunters’ phone numbers, just one more restriction that hamstrings a news-gathering mission.

Because I haven’t heard a word about it anywhere, I’m guessing that the archery deer season has been slow thus far. Yes, it’s true I live in an old tavern, but that’s about as close as I get to barrooms, which I’ve taken off my visits list, eliminating a great rumor mill. But, still, not so much as a gas-station whisper, a lonely email or phone call? Nope. Utter silence. Curious indeed. Which isn’t to say a tidbit isn’t bound to come my way sometime before Turkey Day. Some may recall I lucked out last year when an infamous young Greenfield nimrod I happen to know and enjoy pulled into my yard sporting a major racker worthy of print lying on the bed of his pickup. I enjoyed that morning visit and lively chatter and even went to my study to lend him a book about the four stages of the rut, a hardcover with a plastic sleeve protecting the dust jacket. Unfortunately, I suspect the book is long gone, totally my fault. Although I know better than to loan out books, I thought he’d enjoy it, and believe he did. Now it’s a goner. Oh well. Live and learn. I do understand, did it a few times myself when young. Can’t say I’m proud of it, though.

As for bird hunting, well, I can’t complain. I’ve changed my routine and rediscovered private coverts that are still as productive as they were many years ago when hunting with another late friend I called “Old Smitty” because of the L.C. Smith side-by-side he carried. The poor fella crashed his car into a giant maple tree and died way too young. But, anyway, I’d say that despite receiving fewer birds now than 20 years ago, these private covers I’m revisiting seem to hold birds longer today than they did in the past. Why? Because the state has redirected hunting pressure away from private property to its Wildlife Management Areas, where hunters are well aware most pheasants are today stocked.

Just Tuesday, stopping at a spot where in the past I enjoyed consistent success, sure enough, I got into quite a cluster of pheasant flushes. Hunting with a buddy and three dogs, we shot some and scattered the rest willy-nilly throughout a dense cattail and alder swamp, assuring there’ll be many left upon our return. In fact, I may just head right back there upon finishing the first draft of this weekly chore. I’m running late and am sure the dogs are getting impatient for their daily, mud- and blood-splattered ramble. Young Chubby is really coming into his own. Now that he’s gotten a good noseful of pheasant, he’s showing the same enthusiasm as mother Lily and the late Ringo, a distant cousin. Chubby-Chub is big, rugged and athletic, a real brush-buster, akin to a world-class tight end or linebacker, and much easier to handle than headstrong Ringy, although no less aggressive or tireless, a great nose, to boot. It’s exciting to watch him “light up” on a hot scent. He flips his switch to frantic, bouncing, snorting, perking his ears up when he thinks the bird is right there. Give him more experience, one-on-one and retrieves and he’ll surely be giving me those “Please?” over-the-shoulder looks Ringy used to flash when he heard a distant cock crowing. When bored by inaction, I’d extend my arm in the direction of the rooster, say “Find him!” and wait as he made a beeline toward the enticing sound. It wouldn’t be long before I’d hear a loud cackle and see a long-tailed rooster fly out of the alders. If it came my way, I’d shoot. If not, no problem, it’d likely be there another day. Trust me, Chubby will soon be begging for similar search-and-destroy permission, and he never witnessed any Ringy adventures.

In closing, I must say I’m relieved that Mitt Romney is gone for good. Don’t let the door hit ya where the lord split ya. That’s my response. We didn’t need him. Now his Neanderthal party better reinvent itself. Either that or brace for Hillary in 2016. Meanwhile, our postal workers and service employees can breathe a deep sigh of relief as the right-wing haters who begrudge pensions shake in their shiny black boots with cleats on the heels.

Glory, glory hallelujah! Could it be that Ronald Reagan’s America is dead and gone? I sure hope so but am not confident. I remember thinking Nixon was gone for good during the Clinton term. Then his diabolical ghost reappeared with Cheney, Rumsfeld and other Nixon retreads in the Bush Administration we’re still recovering from.

It could happen again in a country that doesn’t seem to learn from its mistakes.

Whew! What a morning.

It started OK after a restless night’s sleep. I arose a little late, poured black coffee and went to my favorite chair, where natural morning light through the southern window illuminates whatever I’m reading, even under cloudy skies. An hour or so later, my thoughts turned to the dogs, Lily and Chubby, likely anticipating another swamp free-for-all like Tuesday’s. First, I had to check my computer. Unable to retrieve email or access the Internet at midnight, I shut it down overnight, hoping to regain access to both in the morning. If not, I knew the drill. I’d have to disconnect all the lines from the modem and router, unplug the cord from the wall and let it sit at least a minute before reconnecting everything in reverse order. Although it works 99 percent of the time, I hate doing it. Just not for me. Way too technical. No desire to tinker with computers. Well, the good news was that the quick-fix worked. Then the phone rang. Caller ID was a cerebral distant cousin I enjoy chatting with. She’s been around, has sophisticated political insights and often suggests interesting reading. She touched upon a subject I wanted to discuss and off we went to ancient Sanderson matters, more than an hour. We even hopped across the pond, where fascism  spawned. Oooooo! Taboo. Leave it! The guardians of freedom, liberty and justice are watching; bar-stool sophists, too. Never wise to stir their ignorant ire.

So here I sit, running late, probably no chance of squeezing in a quick hunt. Although I haven’t totally dismissed hunting yet, it ain’t looking good. Poor dogs. They love a good, mud-splattered ramble. Me, too.

Anyway, how grateful I am that I got a jump on this chore Tuesday. Yep, sat down with my hair still wet from the shower, sweat-soaked hunting garb hanging out in the carriage shed to dry, sheltered from blustery, post-Sandy winds that had not been an issue during our two-hour romp through what used to be my favorite pheasant covert, now too crowded. I don’t mind admitting I was pleased to find this special place, indelibly stained with family DNA, vacant. Not a hunter in sight. Rare indeed. Can’t say I was counting on it, either. Just rode through on a whim and was pleasantly surprised. When I saw that I had the big overgrown field to myself, I backed my truck in, slipped on my vest, loaded my side-by-side, and let the dogs out of their crates to joyously zig and zag through tangled, thorny cover we know and love. Lily recognized the place immediately, was tell-tail pleased with my choice. Don’t believe that old wives’ tale about dogs having no ability to reason. Lily knows this covert like her kennel. I’m convinced she even remembers my preferred route and where she is most likely to flush birds. It was a good hunt: two well-spaced flushes, a hen and a cock on opposite ends, and outta there. Returning homeward, I took the back way over Stillwater for two gallons of cider at Clarkdale, a customary bird-hunting stop. I do enjoy talking to Tom and Ben, the dad a Woodstock brother, no less.

Hunting alone, I had enjoyed fresh-air solitude, heavenly indeed — a little sun, a lot of wind, too warm, plenty of time to let my mind wander, some of it unprintable in a family paper. Actually, my cranial wheels started spinning right out of the gate, on the ride down Colrain Road, before I even reached the Mohawk Trail. Between the Big Y Plaza and GCC, I spotted a strapping young man walking downtown with a child in a stroller, another riding his backpack. It got me wondering how many more of these unfortunate homeless souls will be wandering aimlessly about if Mitt Romney wins. Some folks with young kids now get to stay in motels. Where they’ll stay if Romney gets in, I can only imagine. I think it’ll be ugly. Which reminded me of the Stephen Stills’, pre-election, Rolling Stone-online editorial I had just read. A counter-culture singer-songwriting icon from the Sixties, Stills has never been bashful about saying what he thinks. This time, he describes Romney as, “just raw ambition with no real ideology,” which is spot-on, in my opinion. But it gets worse for all the Mitt-wits. The author of that Sixties anthem “For What It’s Worth,” went on to complain, “I never in my lifetime thought I would see a creepier politician than Richard Nixon, but in the last few days, it became clear that Willard Mitt Romney is really, really creepy. Icky creepy, as my granddaughter would put it.”

Horrors. What have we come to? I couldn’t agree more with Stills, another Woodstock brother, one I listened to in the rain and smelly red mud, still respect. Artists have clearer vision than the rest of us. I believe that. Now we can only hope and pray that something isn’t again “happening here.” But I fear the worst with this scary election less than a week away. Don’t forget that our unfortunate homeless right off the streets of Dickens’ London — many of them insane and pharmaceutically-institutionalized to save money; some veterans  — exploded onto the landscape during the glorious Reagan regime of right-wing nirvana. Romney is worse; and, trust me, I’m no Ronnie Ray Gun fan. Profiles of Romney, his vulture-capitalist company and Mormon beliefs are “out there” for all to digest. Problem is, folks who should be reading it, these mythical “undecideds” (more like clueless) we hear so much about, rely instead on “news sources” like Roger Ailes’ insidious Fox-News propaganda machine. Talk about creepy. It’s straight out of Orwellian newspeak. Some will say MSNBC is no better. I disagree. At least Rachel Maddow is a Rhodes-Scholar, a probing, Happy Valley intellectual and sophisticated researcher whose truth-seeking and fact-checking intentions I find laudable. Someone has to demand the truth, or at least try before windbags like Sean Hannity and the Fundamentalist noise machine cuffs them upside the head. Can anyone find me three more diabolical TV “news” commentators than Hannity, Karl Rove and Ann Coultner. Well, I guess Joseph Goebbels was worse. Who knows? We’re just getting started on this continent.

But enough of that stuff. I don’t want to get myself into trouble with the frothing, flag-waving Brown Shirts trying to protect their chauvinistic mirage. Back to hunting, even if I must stay in a ranting mode. I had intended this week to revisit a subject mentioned weeks ago about a record bear harvest set during our three-week September season. This much I can say for certain: The preliminary harvest, according to a spokesperson for state Bear Project Leader Laura Hajduk Conlee, was a record 168. The previous mark was 142, duplicated in successive years before Gov. Romney made it next to impossible to gather information from public servants. When I fired off a follow-up email asking for potential contributing factors to the record harvest, not surprisingly, MassWildlife’s response was hollow silence. Growing impatient at the end of last week, I sent a sarcastic email to the only source at Field Headquarters in Westborough permitted to spontaneously speak to the press, though I would guess that’s stretching it a bit. Well, I must give the lady credit. She responded to me promptly Monday, the state hurricane “holiday” for Sandy. So how can I say the woman’s not a dedicated, conscientious employee? I’ll give her that. Still, her response was pathetic, yet not necessarily her fault. She said Ms. Conlee was not comfortable discussing reasons for the record harvest until she had reviewed all data.

Hmmmm? Give me a freakin’ break. This is the state Bear Project Leader we’re talking about, not some bean counter. She’s charged with managing our bear population, putting out brush fires and assessing the statewide dynamic, while overseeing tagging, collaring, tranquilizing and relocating. You name it, she’s the boss when it comes to bears, and that includes field research, which she does plenty of. When bear-checking stations were fair game and I made my annual, pre-Romney harvest sweeps from one to another, speaking to men and women who weighed the bloody beasts on their scales, there was never a shortage of interesting information and colorful hunting yarns to share. Successful hunters love to talk. Yeah, sure, there’s always a chance that some of the chatter is pure fiction. And, yes, no question some of the folks who claim to shoot bears in the beechnuts or oaks or hickories actually shot them over illegal bait hauled into their stand. But, tell me, what about that will change next week or next month? Ms. Hajduk no doubt spoke in September to checking-station personnel, especially her colleagues at the hatcheries and district offices, and she has to have an idea as to why hunters experienced unusual success. Clearly, the woman just doesn’t want to be bothered and, frankly, I’m sick of chasing uncooperative people who don’t understand “news,” demand I wait like everyone else for their useless press releases that arrive months after the fact, by which time readers have forgotten there was a bear season, and hunters ask, “What the fuck took you so long?”

Well, fellas, don’t blame me. The culprit is our secretive former governor, Bain Capital CEO and current presidential candidate, a man you’ll likely vote for because the NRA tells you to. Count me out. I’m going in the other direction without a worry in the world that my guns will be confiscated. Like my colonial ancestors, I pay no heed to reactionaries. In fact, I find then quite boring and destructive.

Oh yeah, one more quickie before I go. I see where New York City was underwater this week. How can that be, you ask? Well, truth is that the people who are surprised haven’t been listening. They’re the same folks who broke into hysterical laughter when Uncle Mitt taunted global-warming fears during his Convention speech. Sadly, there’ll be no last laughs on this dire issue. Just terrifying tears of shame.

Finally, a cool gray day on which to chase the dogs through a tangled, thorny swamp, though I must admit Wednesday was still a bit warm for me.

I guess I could have chosen the easy route today, having written 850 words Monday, following a pleasant, windy, sunny hunt in an anonymous place. Two robust hours through dense, wet cover, and three kills: a cock pheasant and two woodcock, also two other woodcock flushes that eluded me. That’s a good day in my book, lots of exercise and fresh air. The biggest problem was burdocks; my dogs were loaded with them, on their ears, their chests, along both rib cages. I think I’ll have to get my buddy over with his Oster clippers. It’s that bad. Lily and Chubby just refuse to sit still and allow me to remove the spiky critters with a metal comb. I removed the easy ones. That’s it. What a freakin’ mess.

On Wednesday, more of the same in a different covert farther away than I prefer to travel with the price of gas what it is. I’ll do just about anything to get away from hunter-orange brigades in familiar old coverts that have become crazy the past couple of years. On the way home, walking out of a convenience store with coffee, a young fella wearing an orange cap spotted my attire and approached, asking if I had any luck. Yes, a couple of roosters and two woodcock. I don’t think he believed me. He wanted to see them.  I opened my tailgate, dogs wagging their tails. The four birds were laying on the bed. When he asked me where I got them, I could have given him my old buddy Big Stash’s favorite answer — “In the neck!” — but chose instead Chi-CO-pee, emphasis on the CO. The look told me he understood.

We got to blabbing and I disclosed an embarrassing mistake I had made earlier. I realized just before turning down the final road to park that I had forgotten my vest. Yep, left it hanging in clear view on its carriage-shed nail. Just what I needed, one more reminder that I’m getting old, this a day after accepting an offer from the Outdoor Writers Association of America to change my status from “Active” to “Senior Active,” eliminating annoying periodic audits I’ve grown to accept. Had it been a forgotten shotgun, I would have checked myself  into the nearest Alzheimer’s clinic for 24-hour observation. But it was just a vest. No big deal. Yeah, it would make things more difficult if I needed a game-bag. But I was wearing rugged bibs, had two boxes of shells in the truck, could get through it and did, with aplomb. I just put five shells in each hip pocket, stuffed the woodcock between my bibs and belt, and dangled that first pheasant by my side from its feet, dropping it for the final flush, even tossing it a few times for young Chubby to retrieve. When the second rooster came up t’other side of an alder clump, I dropped a passing shot, ending my hunt. Lily soon retrieved the ringneck and we took the long trek back to the truck, gun in one hand, two cock birds dangling from the other, the two woodcock tucked away. Oh well, what’s a little more blood on a stained, faded, patched hunting shirt?

Bird hunting is, for me, about patterns. Always has been. The problem is that those patterns change due to factors beyond my control. For one thing, I have over the years familiarized many hunting buddies with favorite coverts, where they continue to follow my paths with other dogs and hunters. No problem. When my favorite spots get too busy, I just revisit old ones I have neglected for decades. When I discover a place where the flushes are frequent, the pressure thin, I keep it to myself and carve out a new route, continually checking other trusty old coverts in passing. Such locations exist on both sides of the Connecticut River, and it’s getting to the point where I must be secretive about good quiet sites others would love to discover.

I’m not hesitant to confess that I miss old friends’ private coverts which no longer get stocked for one reason or another. Stocking patterns change. Not always for the better. It seems the state prefers loading up its own Wildlife Management Areas these days, with the one at Swift River receiving daily allotments, others closer to home guaranteed two stockings per week. It’s no secret now that it’s “out there” on the web, and the fellas are always on the lookout, patrolling, hoping to arrive at a field full of freshly stocked birds that are little challenge to bag. Experienced gun dogs often catch such birds and bring them back without a pellet in them — called table birds by some — to me, not a meat hunter, a waste of time. Give me a two-hour hunt with three or four flushes and I’m happy, no cluster flushes or orange-clad troops, please. That said, it’s gotten to the point where a man can no longer bide time for a day or two after a covert’s been stocked, because by the time you arrive, there’ll likely be nothing left, especially early in the season, before pheasants discover impenetrable sanctuaries of thick alders and sharp prickers, the ground below mostly submerged in deep beaver-dam slop. Pheasants that survive the first few hours and days soon learn how to stay out of harm’s way by taking daily refuge on “islands” in such beaver wetlands and flying back and forth from feeding sites. I’ve witnessed this phenomenon but don’t often identify locations. Perceptive hunters observe such activity, learn acclimated birds’ habits and know survivors will frequent the same feeding zones over and over again once their new habitat becomes home.

I may be wrong but it sure seems to me that there are more pheasant hunters out there nowadays with good gun dogs than 20 years ago. Then again, maybe I was spoiled back then, when I knew the owners of private coverts and hunted their property often, usually with the place to myself, never crowded. Those were the days when, if a truck was parked at my first choice, no problem, I’d just move on until I found a vacant covert. These days, the WMAs seem to receive most of the birds, which makes for crowded, less enjoyable and potentially more dangerous hunting, the possibility of hunter and/or dog conflict always a concern. I suppose that’s one reason why WMAs are being stocked just before dark, the strategy likely being that then there’ll be birds left for the following day. The problem is that many of the birds stocked at dusk never see sunrise,  quickly devoured in unfamiliar surroundings by opportunistic predators, such as coyotes, foxes, fishers and birds of prey. I received a call this past weekend from a friend who hunted Northfield early Saturday morning and found 10 pheasant carcasses killed and eaten by coyotes or foxes. He knows the difference between canid kills and those of hawks or owls. Standing in a parking lot after his hunt, my friend met a pair of hunters who had toured an adjacent field with similar findings. They discovered a dozen freshly killed and partially eaten carcasses. That’s 22 pheasants killed overnight in one WMA. How many birds do you suppose were released Friday evening just before dark?

Sure, it’s a fact that exaggeration during such gab sessions is always a possibility. But even if the participants doubled the number of carcasses found, that’s still 11 dead birds, which is far too many. Had those birds been stocked in the morning and 11 of them killed by hunters before dark, the survivors would more likely be there the next day, having been given the luxury of several daylight hours to familiarize themselves with a new, wild habitat. Given even that short period to find a safe overnight nesting spot, perhaps they could evade predators. But when they touch down just before dark, disoriented after a long truck ride in transport crates of four, their chances of overnight survival can be slim indeed.

I suppose it is what it is: put-and-take hunting that’s drawing quite a crowd. No wonder gentleman wing-shooters chase grouse and woodcock, wild birds better for you on the table if you can find them.

Finally, my bird-hunting gear is hanging in the open carriage shed. I pulled it out Tuesday morning, under cool sunny skies, white clouds, a blustery wind sweeping yellow maple leaves across the yard. By the time I sat here to get started, a ladybug invasion had bloomed. Looks like a banner year for those little critters farmers are so fond of. Honestly, I’d be chill with them were it not for part-time innkeeping.

They say ladybugs are helpful because they devour aphids. In the process of buying my home more than 15 years ago, a home inspector found many of the red turtle-like bugs crawling on the front upstairs windows on a sunny winter day and told me they were the sign of a healthy home. Now, even when I can’t see them, I know their odor, nothing unpleasant or overwhelming, but I recognize it immediately. I really enjoy ribbing farmer friend, neighbor and Recorder colleague Jay Butynski early each spring by inquiring as to whether his dad might want to stop by with a cardboard box to gather the little critters as they emerge en masse from under the upstairs picture rails on a sunny day. The Big Boiczyk just grunts a half-chuckle, never has taken me up on the offer.

But that’s neither here nor there. Bird-hunting season has arrived — archery deer season, too — and I finally got out Tuesday for my first pheasant hunt with Lily and Chubby. It was a pleasant yet unproductive push through a familiar wetland that seems to get wetter, thicker and thornier every year now that beavers have free reign of our bottomlands. I picked my way through the productive covert that’s indelibly stained with ancient family DNA and enjoyed every tangled step despite never raising my side-by-side, anticipating a flush or hearing even a distant blast. That’ll soon change. Maybe even this week. Actually, I wasn’t overly enthused about the trip, just had to go when I felt the cool fall air and stiff breeze. I had to run the dogs anyway, so why not do so toting a shotgun? On my way back to the truck after braving thorns along the edge of tall alders, bag empty, I bumped into an old friend arriving. He recently received the unwelcome news that he’s carrying aggressive prostate cancer that must be dealt with, sort of piling on for a guy riding out an ugly divorce, young kids, no fun. It will, I’m sure, be a recurring subject when we hunt together through the season. We’re as compatible in the field and we were on the Florence softball diamond where we met decades ago.

Tuesday’s slim pickings were not to be unexpected to start the annual put-and-take pheasant season. The flushes always increase as the season progresses, the stocked birds accumulating and acclimating to their new wild habitat, acquiring feeding patterns and learning escape routes. Apparently the state put for opening-day and weekend hunters took, because Lily or Chubby never once “made game” during a robust hour-plus romp. I was astonished by the number of hunters I saw on a Monday. It was precisely what I intentionally avoided on Saturday’s opener, when I begged off, choosing instead to putter around home, finish a Chief Joseph Brant biography, and attend an evening Jim Vieira lecture on the stone monuments and chambers of New England’s prehistoric ritual landscape. I’d guess Vieira drew 150 people, which, frankly, surprised me. I was anticipating maybe 20 or 30. It was, in my opinion, a home run, enhanced by a historic building that greeted me with a warm familial embrace. I had never before been inside Ashfield’s handsome Town Hall, originally the First Congregational Church before getting rolled down to Main Street from nearby Norton Hill. The building oozes with family spirits, it being the church where fourth great-granduncle Rev. Alvan Sanderson preached to brothers Asa and Chester during the first quarter of the 19th century. Not only that but fourth great-grandfather Col. David Snow of Heath had a hand in creating the proud hilltown edifice as an apprentice for famed Buckland architect Col. John Ames, who, depressed in deep debt, committed hideous suicide outside the church … more on that later. Snow apparently learned the carpentry trade well from Ames, because some 20 years after helping to build the Ashfield church, he himself was contracted to build the Heath church in 1833. A daredevil of sorts, legend has it that Snow celebrated the church-raising by climbing the frame to the ridgepole, tight-roping it to the middle, taking off his hat and standing on his head upon it. The man was 54 at the time, and weighed more than 220 pounds. As for the infamous Ames suicide, it occurred on Sept. 4, 1813. With his Ashfield project near completion, a despondent Ames sat along the church-side Norton Hill burial ground fence in broad daylight and sliced open his jugular with a chisel. Say what you will. No denying Ames was a man.

Back to the present, though, I must admit I’m happy to have my bird-hunting garb airing out on familiar nails and hooks and pegs on the westernmost carriage shed wall. I had quite a time of it Tuesday morning wiping my Filson oilcloth bibs and shooting vest free of the mildew it had collected while hanging on a wooden peg protruding on a 45-degree angle from a heavy vertical post separating two of the four open stalls in the stable. It’s funny. Just Monday my neighbor was bemoaning his home’s mildew problem, claiming it’s a new Meadows plague, that he can’t remember mildew as a kid. He suspects global warming to be the culprit, which is good news. The man’s a dyed-in-the-wool Republican. Well, lo and behold on the very next day, I myself had a major mildew issue, one of my own making, I might add. My labor-intensive cleaning project set me back an hour, and I can’t say the garments were totally mildew-free when done. What a fool. Had I hung my hunting clothes in the attic as usual, I would have eliminated the problem. But I had a lot going on at the end of pheasant season last year and got distracted. So now, until it fade, I’ll have to carry a mildew stench into gas stations and convenience stores. If the problem doesn’t soon resolve itself by aggressive brushing through heavy cover, I’ll probably have to wipe the clothes down again, maybe Sunday, using a sponge saturated in a diluted mix of bleach and warm water. The bibs are tattered and on their way out, anyway, but I’d like to save the vest — comfortable and functional, with a lot of good years left if properly cared for, which obviously wasn’t the case this year. Oh well. Live and learn. The story of my life.

One more thing before I go. I would be remiss were I not to give a quick plug to loyal reader Ned James of Ashfield. We have become email friends, corresponding often, and we finally met by chance at Saturday’s Vieira talk. James, a humble artist or craftsman (is there a difference?), found me seated inconspicuously at the back, introduced himself and sat down. Speculating beforehand that I may be in attendance, he brought along a small box of reading material he wanted to share. After the talk, he accompanied me back to my truck and I drove him to his car, parked off Main Street in the opposite direction. Two of the books he wanted me to read were by an author I had heard of but not read. His name is Jack Weatherford. On Monday, I opened “Native Roots: How the Indians Enriched America” and honestly can’t put it down, a fascinating read on the heels of my immersion into the colonial history of New York State’s Mohawk Valley, an early gateway to the west then ruled by Sir William Johnson and the Iroquois Nation. I recommend Weatherford to anyone interested in Native American history and how prehistoric peoples shaped our continent. Weatherford’s right up there with the likes of Francis Jennings, James Axtell and William Cronon as a Native American scholar.

Yes, what a fascinating civilization it was that we destroyed; sadder still the prehistoric Native history we continue to obliterate and deny. That was the precise subject addressed Saturday night before an overflow crowd in that stately Ashfield meeting house where, for me, the air was thick with smiling kindred spirits, the hall stuffed with interesting, engaging folks of all ages. I must say I love the hilltown feel. I guess my ancestors did, too.

I’m upbeat on a gray morn, steaming Tom White cup of black coffee on the Queen Anne stand beside me, killing time in front of the boob tube before my daily morning walk with the dogs. The phone rings. It’s a dear old friend who’s had a tough go the past year. We share a special friendship, one formed on the softball diamond, where, if the guy making out the lineup was worth his salt, he’d pencil us in back to back, the big guy before me. That way, I could coach him through the hitter’s checklist from the on-deck circle.

“Relax, Kid,” I’d soothe with confident aggression. “Hands loose, eye on the ball, give it a ride.”

My big buddy was a great listener. Sad he never had the luxury of good coaching. His independent streak made it difficult to live by public-school rules and regs, one of many fine country ballplayers to fall through the cracks in a system that didn’t recognize his gifts. Years later, with my diamond skills greatly diminished by age and injury, we fed off each other like only special teammates do. No one will ever break that strong bond between us. We are, even after all these years, still loyal pals, savoring a rare connection worth maintaining.

Fact is I seldom talk or write about my diamond days. I’ve moved on after sticking around far too long. Readers often ask me why I don’t venture back to the diamond. They know I have stories to tell, some that would make crew-cut coaches cringe, maybe even fire off letters to the editor accusing me of irresponsibility for telling the naked truth. That threat doesn’t scare me. No, I guess I just don’t feel like writing about my ballplaying daze. Not now, anyway. I’m sure the day will come. But still, whenever the big guy calls  — not often — our warm conversation always drifts onto the smaller diamond of my twilight years. I’m not hesitant to walk down those gouged dugout steps before breaking free to re-enter the real world of daily routine. Always entertaining, our conversations are apt to initiate gut-busting laughs from both ends of the phone. We traipse from one subject to another like hummingbirds challenging each other for Rose of Sharon blossoms, and, yes, many of the tales are unprintable in a family paper. As usual, the big guy hit on three or four subjects that opened a warm geyser of light chatter and, later, profound thought. He revved me up, so to speak. The salient four topics were bears, cougars, presidential politics and over-30 baseball. They got my wheels spinning, none more than the political seed that germinated into risqué reflection capable of raising some readers’ ire — the price you pay for sharing introspection. Why hide it? I can handle the blow-back. Dangerous territory. Tell me, who is more defensive than battered women trying to conceal the abuse they silently endure?

But enough of that for now, let’s move to the harmless matter of black bears, and the fact that they’re still pestering my buddy in his Miller River neighborhood. There, they enjoy making mincemeat of his birdfeeders and ripping his trash bags open when given the opportunity. But the big guy is plenty cool with that. He kinda likes bears, would even like to get to know them, was once foolish enough to get up close and personal to an injured bruin, calmly talking to the big limping beast from within spitting distance in his yard before coming to his senses and thinking, “Hey, Man, what are you, freakin’ nuts? You could get hurt.” This, mind you, from a man who’d physically blend nicely into any corner of an NFL locker room reserved for the largest of hogs. Because he touched on bears, I told him I had finally heard from MassWildlife about the preliminary September harvest, which was a record 168. Indeed, that’s less than half the annual total needed to stabilize a burgeoning Bay State bear population. But still, there’s no denying 168 is better than 68, so we’ll take it. According to the email received from an official spokesperson last Thursday, the previous-best September harvest is 142 in 2003 and 2004.

Our bear discussion didn’t linger. No, instead we leapt straight to the historic king of New England predators called cougars or mountain lions or panthers and catamounts, depending on who you’re talking to. Whatever you want to call them, believe it, they’re on the comeback trail. I told him of another sighting reported to me this week, it  right in his neighborhood. It seems one Bill Morris, more than familiar with cougars as a former Southern Californian, drove right up to the long-tailed beast in his Erving driveway just before dark a couple of weeks back. He got a clear, close look before the beast ambled off into the woods in no great hurry and disappeared toward Rattlesnake and Northfield mountains, where other folks have reported seeing cougars. My buddy wasn’t surprised. He’s one of many eastern Franklin County residents who’s seen a cougar, his spotted side of the road while driving through Wendell.

Soon our chat predictably swung from wildlife to the softball diamond. He loves to reminisce about the good old days when we’d pull into a ballpark complex for weekend semi-fast tournaments in Athol or Worcester or Gloucester, Turners Falls, Buckland or Whately. The local semi-fast leagues lasted until about 1990, when they and all other local competitive men’s softball died a sudden death. My buddy tried to hang on by playing over-30 baseball, which he said quickly devolved into a hapless joke because the best players fled in boredom. I admitted to knowing little and caring less about over-30 baseball, then just couldn’t resist sharing with him the hot summer day when I stopped on a whim along the raised shoulder overlooking Herlihy Park in Whately to briefly watch such a game while devouring a tasty large-vanilla waffle cone from Pasiecnik’s adjacent creemee stand. I observed six tedious outs and left wondering how that game could satisfy anyone’s competitive juices. The skill-level was pathetic, a far cry from the days when cars lined that same elevated lip to watch the likes of Eddie Skribiski, Matty Murphy, Mike Perenteau, Bobby Bourbeau, Glen Desjkavich, Raul DeHoyos and many, many other fair country ballplayers strutting their stuff for the annual Frontier Men’s League Tournament. Those players carried themselves like athletes and turned the snappy double plays of grizzled vets, a far cry from what I witnessed that day in Whately. No wonder those coed leagues are the new rage. Must be the fringe benefits justify travel costs. Just an educated guess.

Finally, the big guy and I surprisingly ventured into maiden territory, discussing, of all things, presidential politics, a subject I didn’t anticipate and wouldn’t initiate. He must know where I stand from what he’s read, but I would have never surmised him an outspoken Obama man. In fact, the big guy harbors genuine dislike for Romney, and he didn’t hesitate to label the man a liar. Good news, I guess, for Democratic operatives. Imagine that: a big, white, 50-something, former farm boy and ballplayer repulsed by the thought of a Romney Administration. Trust me, the man is not one of these ivory-tower eggheads pejoratively referred to as “secular progressives” by the likes of Hanitty or O’Reilly or Rush. No, just a simple working man, a rugged individual at that, just the type the Romney machine assumes it can manipulate with ugly, race-baited, guns-God-and-gays rhetoric. Well, I’m proud to say it hasn’t worked with my big, lovable buddy. I do hope there are many others like him. The wild card up Obama’s sleeve is Romney’s low-likability factor. Here we have a president ripe for the plucking and the other side marches out a staid corporate stuffed shirt who’s door-handle dull. Then he has the audacity to pick a right-wing ideologue running mate. Too bad everyone in America couldn’t read Matt Taibbi’s “Rolling Stone” piece from a few weeks back about Romney’s Bain Capital. If widely read, my guess is that even folks totally disenchanted with Obama would choose to sit out the election rather than vote for Romney, depicted by Taibbi as the filthiest of capitalist swine.

With the phone call behind me, walking the dogs through Sunken Meadow, preoccupied with thoughts of an evening talk I’ll lead next Thursday at Ashfield’s Bullitt Reservation, my mind skipped backward, reopening the provoking Romney vein, which bled straight into peripheral reflection about our furious Brown/Warren race. Although I don’t know my buddy’s Warren assessment, I’m not afraid to admit I’m pulling for her. The woman has guts. In his 2010 book “Gritopia,” Taibbi eviscerates Wall Street and the lap-dog government overseeing it while, in the same breath, praising Warren as one of the few honest politicians left in America. My guess is that Warren will ride Obama’s coattails to victory. I can’t foresee many voters selecting Obama and Pretty-Boy Brown in one fell swoop. Just doesn’t make sense. Which pulls me straight into that previously mentioned mischievous though train I entertained. … I get a laugh out of these frustrated, desperate housewives proudly sporting Warren stickers on their bumpers these days. They too admire Warren’s guts, but it’s pure envy. Trapped in bad places, outspoken on community chat boards, Facebook and Twitter, maybe even during parent-teacher conferences, they are, once inside the threshold of home, reduced to voiceless servants dominated and demeaned by half-wit spouses. Behind closed doors, these women can only fanaticize about acquiring guts like Warren’s. Publicly, they deny their husbands’ support for Pretty Boy after he bludgeons Warren with his sarcastic “Professor” moniker, inciting that blue-collar throng to howl the Braves’ chant in the streets outside. Meanwhile, these subservient housewives wear their charming Prozak smiles to the mini-mart counter, take the roundabout route home to bawl their eyes out, and stand outside the polling place defiantly displaying large Warren signs high and proud. It’s all show, a very sad charade.

Enough! Gotta go. Lily and Chubby are waiting at the kennel gate, tails a waggin’.

Whew! What a whirlwind week. I feel like a dark funnel cloud has swept me away. Maybe I’d best just go limp and let it drop me where it pleases, totally at its mercy, hopefully depositing me in a freshly harrowed field. But first, as I brace for the landing from this dizzying spin, a few harmless observations from a meandering mind.

I was hoping to have something on the preliminary September bear harvest and queried the proper person but have heard not a word, about what I’ve grown to expect. That’s just the way it goes nowadays, ever since Gov. Mitt Romney made it impossible to get quick, candid answers from state employees, who by law cannot speak to the press without approval from an inside screening agency. Of course, part of me feels like that rule gives employees every opportunity to drag their feet and work at their own snail’s pace, but what to do? I’ll be curious to find out what, if any, impact the EEE scare had on the hunter participation. I myself knew a hunter who took a town robo-call warning about EEE and would not sit in his stand for fear of being bitten by an infected mosquito, not an unwise decision, I guess. Anyway, it’s no secret that the Bay State bear population continues to grow at a burgeoning rate, one that it’s clear cannot and never will be effectively managed under current hunting regulations that forbid hounds or bait or both while officials refuse to address other potential measures, such as opening the shotgun and primitive-firearm deer seasons to random bear kills when opportunity presents itself. I’m not saying I’m for bear hunting during deer season, only listing it as a potential solution from a limited pool of options. The choices are few if the state wants to rely on hunting as its bear-management tool. Bait and hounds are legal in surrounding states, where the annual bear harvests dwarf ours.

Something else worth mentioning is that the Western and Valley District fall trout-stocking have been out for a week, with, as always, some local waters on the list, including the upper and lower Deerfield River, Millers River, Ashfield Lake, Upper Highland Lake in Goshen, Lake Mattawa in Orange, Lake Wyola in Shutesbury, Laurel Lake in Erving, and Sheomet Pond in Warwick. Although I have not seen the Millers orDeerfield rivers this week, I do observe the Green River daily and it looks prime for angling, flowing at near perfect depth and current. No, the Green won’t receive a fall allotment. Still, there must be many plump spring holdovers that are by now fully acclimated to their new home. The same can be said for most river systems that were generously stocked in April and May.

Meanwhile, woodcock season opened Wednesday, and you should soon start noticing pheasant-stocking trucks on the highways and byways for that season, which opens on Oct. 13, along with the partridge and rabbit seasons. Squirrel season has been open for a couple of weeks. What about waterfowlers, you ask? Well, the Berkshire and Central Zones will open for ducks and geese on Wednesday and the Coastal Zone opens three days later, on Oct. 13. Two days later (Oct. 15) the archery deer season will commence, with the fall turkey (Oct. 29) and second segment of the bear season (Nov. 5-24) on the near horizon.

It’s difficult to assess our wild mast crops because I have not traveled widely but do hope to be out and about soon. Judging from what I have seen in my daily rambles and heard from reliable sources, wild apples can be hard to find. The apple tree in my yard produced not a one that I could find, and I mow. Plus, only one of three wild trees I pass on my daily walks with the dogs produced any fruit, and even that tree dropped less than 10, which my dogs had cleaned up before September. A quick look at that stately riverside tree on Wednesday produced no lonely apple sightings. Acorns and beechnuts are spotty but can be plentiful in some places. There are acorns on the ground where I walk daily, also hickory nuts, but I have not seen a butternut or beechnut on the ground where they were plentiful last year.

On a long, relaxing hike through the woods of South Amherst and northern Granby with a dignified lady last week — following a network of paths connected to the Matacomet/Monadnock Trail behind her home off the old Bay Path — we found many acorns and beechnuts in gorgeous hardwoods marked by distinctive outcroppings of ledge, remarkably similar to Whately/Conway woods I patrol and worship. Among our samples on the ground were what I believed to be white-oak acorns that looked like those oblong commercial green grapes you’d buy at Big Y. The ones that caught my attention were shiny and out of their caps, which for some reason were scarce on the ground next to the nuts. My friend speculated that a windstorm may have been responsible. Although I hadn’t packed my Sibley’s tree-identification guidebook, my thinking was that we were dealing with white-oak acorns that, unlike those from red oaks, germinate in the fall. Upon closer inspection of random oaks here and there for rest of our two-plus-hour hike, we found many white oaks, some of them chestnut oaks, identifiable by their leaves and deep-furrowed bark, similar from afar to black locust. My friend said she often bumps into hunters on her daily fall walks, and I can see why. The woods behind her home are an example of classic Pioneer Valley hardwood forest, the terrain open and manageable afoot, with many ravines and rocky knobs to use as observation decks.

That noontime walk inspired me to find a partner for a trip to a certain balanced rock I know sitting on a high, secludedWilliamsburgridge. A photographer has already approached me about accompanying me there and elsewhere in the same quadrangle. Great news! I want some photos of the large sacred stone that oozes Manitou, which wafts through the dense mountain-top laurel on the east rim. That journey is on my short list, a good excuse to assess the deer sign through familiar but long-neglected woods. First I must escape this disorienting manmade cyclone, definitely not the worst I’ve encountered; in fact, not even close.

I suppose that’s why I’m confident I’ll get through it. Who knows? I may even land in a better place.