What a difference a day makes in the game called turkey hunting.

Ask 34-year-old Sunderland hunter and Northampton native Ray Cichy II. He killed what may prove to be Massachusetts’ second-largest gobbler taken since records have been kept. Cichy’s 5-year-old trophy tom, taken last week in Hatfield, registered at just under 85 points, according to the National Wild Turkey Federation scoring system. The bird weighed 24.82 pounds with two beards measuring 11 and 6.5 inches, and spurs 1.250 and 1.1250 inches long. Cichy weighed the bird on certified scales at Stop & Shop in Hadley and left with a printout in hand (Hey, I guess international big-box stores can serve some local purpose). The NWTF score is computed by adding the weight, length of beard doubled and length or spurs multiplied by 10.

But that’s just the end of the tale. How Cichy bagged his bird is what should be interesting to anyone who’s hunted and been frustrated by a boss gobbler’s whims, not to mention those who have not and never will hunt turkeys but have a passing interest in how it’s done.

Actually, Cichy killed his bird like most serious turkey hunters do, starting with preseason scouting, almost a must. After that it was topographical assessment, setting up, calling, altering location, interference by another hunter, patience and geniality, and finally connecting by persevering and, of course, being in the right place at the right time. Isn’t that what it always boils down to?

“When it finally happened,” recalled Cichy, a Verizon lineman speaking last week on his cell phone, “it was easy. Text book.”

Arriving before first light, Cichy set up a solitary hen decoy along the edge of a field, sat against a large tree just inside the woods and waited for gobbles. Then he called the bird, which gobbled several more times before flying out of its roost and landing 15 yards in front of the decoy, immediately going into its last strut. Cichy placed his shotgun bead on the bird’s head and neck, squeezed the trigger, sent the bird into the Curly shuffle and was soon standing triumphantly beside it. His watch read 5:45 a.m. The date was May 3.

“I literally heard the bird fly out of its roost and over my head,” Cichy recalled. “Then it landed right there, 25 yards away, almost too easy.”

On such days, which most veteran turkey hunters have experienced, a man might believe that any fool could call in a monster tom. Well, maybe so, but that was only the way it happened for Cichy on the day of kill. Everything hadn’t worked quite so smoothly prior to that. No sir. The path to this potential all-time state-runner-up gobbler began three days before the April 25 opening day. Cichy had done his homework during those three days day by traveling to the site and observing his bird from a concealed location.

Determined to assess what was happening relative to the mating season, Cichy sat in his spot on the mornings of April 22, 23 and 24 to watch, listen and develop strategy. Because the big gobbler had already gathered a harem of five hens, the hunter knew it wasn’t necessarily going to be an easy task to kill it. Gobblers roost near their harems and jealously guard them, typically waiting for the hens to fly out of their tree or trees at first light before flying down to join them, at which point it can be quite difficult to entice the tom away with the plaintive call of an outside suitor. This is especially true right off, before the big boy has tended to his ladies and they have wandered off to set on their nests. And, indeed, it didn’t take long for this very scenario to confront Cichy, immediately complicating matters and necessitating Plan 2.

On opening morning, Cichy said he had the big boss man “all fired up” on and off the roost, but the bird was content to follow its seductive harem down into the open field at first light, then proceeded to trail them away from Cichy’s calls. Undeterred, Cichy waited for the birds to get out of sight, retrieved his decoys (two hens and a jake) and departed, determined to return the next day and adjust his setup. When he did that the next morning, everything was working to perfection, the birds moving in his direction, before another hunter cut him off, which in turkey-hunting jargon means got between him and the birds he was calling, blowing up what likely would have been a successful hunt. Frustrated, Cichy picked up his decoys, spoke in passing to the intruder who claimed to be unaware of his presence (that’s what they all say), and departed, determined to return. But the fact was that his troubles were just beginning.

Day 3 found Cichy at his spot before first light and the forest was silent, not so much as a gobble. No sightings, either. Damn, he thought before leaving, that gobbler must have been onto him after the previous day’s commotion. But when he returned to the scene the next morning, sure enough, more gobbles preceding five hen fly-downs with the tom right behind them, and all six birds again headed away from Cichy. He surmised they must be wise to him and decided to give them a break by taking Friday off and returning Saturday morning, which ultimately proved to be his shortest hunt of the season. With two unfamiliar vehicles parked along the road, obviously weekend warriors, he didn’t even bother stopping, just slowed down a bit, pondered his next move and went home. Hopefully, Monday would be different.

Getting itchy midday Sunday, a curious Cichy took a ride to his site at around 4 p.m. and spotted the big boy out in the field with a hen, just one. Things were looking up. But then he took ill overnight and decided to sit out Monday morning. Coughing and sniffles are never good turkey-hunting companions. Still, he went out that evening to roost the tom and was happy to find it alone. He lingered long enough to hear the bird fly up into its roost, where he could see it “bouncing around in the branches” until dark. He left feeling confident that the next day could be productive, which turned out to be prophetic.

Before daybreak, Cichy sneaked in as close as he dared to the roosted tom and furtively put out one hen decoy before taking a comfortable seat against a big tree. The rest is history. The Hatfield slammer was dead before 6 a.m., but not before it had planted its seed for posterity, now likely being set upon by the harem hens that had abandoned their mate for its final roost.

Soon that big boy’s progeny will be trailing their mothers through hot bottomland hayfields, jumping up to devour bugs and berries and whatever. If any of those birds reach the ripe old age of 5, as few do, they’ll probably resemble their trophy dad; and maybe, just maybe, one of them will become future newspaper fodder.

I wasn’t taking notes, can’t recall whether is was cloudy or clear, dry or wet, but do remember well how it all unfolded.

I was down at Sunken Meadow, walking the dog, spring sprung, observing trees and buds and ferns and skunk cabbage and whatever else interested me, even watched bluebirds, a male and a female, perched like Christmas-tree crowns atop young, adjacent pines as I enjoyed the day and a robust, snappy walk around the perimeter.

About halfway around my loop, on the south end of the field where a beaver pond spills out into the edge of the meadow, I noticed Buddy acting curious and cautious, nose high, ears alert, looking down at something just outside of the greening tangle of multiflora rose along the border. Whatever it was, he respected it, or at least wasn’t sure what he was dealing with, thus the timid approach. He semi-circled but wouldn’t move in as I quickened my step.

When I got to within an underhand toss, I could see what looked like a rock or bag or maybe a chunk of wood in the low, sparse, brown brush. Exactly what it was I could not decipher. Then, when I got closer, I could see we were dealing with a large snapping turtle, as round as my arms spread out to the max and joined at the hands out in front of my torso, definitely nothing to pester. The big, prehistoric critter wasn’t shy, either. No sir. It was standing rigid on all fours in an obvious aggressive pose, tail, head and neck straight out like a German shorthair on point, only ornerier.

I believe it was Buddy’s first encounter with a snapping turtle, and instinct wisely kept him away. The turtle must have smelled dangerous, which, if so, was a good thing, according to a friend I later told about the standoff. “A big snapper could do a job on a dog,” he informed me. He wasn’t telling me anything I didn’t know.

“Leave it,” I said to Buddy in a non-threatening tone, and he seemed almost relieved as he left it and continued on his merry way, trotting joyfully to the west bank of the Green River, not once turning back or even suggesting it. He must have been happy to be done with the armored beast after accurately reading its unfriendly body language, if not dangerous scent, not alluring pheromones by any stretch of the imagination.

My guess is that it was a female snapper looking for a place to bury its eggs, but I haven’t spent any time researching it. It may be a little early for turtle egg-laying. Maybe not. I really don’t know. But something was going on, and apparently that snapper wasn’t the only one out and about that day. I made that discovery the next morning while walking the same meadow and happening upon two friendly fellas grinding Christmas-tree stumps 100 yards from where I had seen the pugnacious turtle. When I stopped to chat and, pointing, shared the story with them, the taller of the two was interested. The previous day, maybe 300 yards west of where my turtle had stood, he had seen another large snapper crossing the paved road. A woman was on the scene, her car parked side of the road as she directed traffic to protect the turtle. She stuck around until the creature crossed the road, then drove off. Later that day, apparently trying to return to the beaver pond it had exited, the turtle was killed by a car, presumably minus the eggs it had laid in the sandy brook-side soil off the east side of the road.

In the weeks to come, many little turtles will probably hatch from that secluded site to replace their dead mother, which never made it home to her beaver pond, likely sparing at least a few of the goslings soon to hatch from a visible Canada goose nest atop a beaver hut. Fishermen tell of watching newborn goslings swim behind their mother and seeing one or two disappear like bobbers on a fish strike when quickly pulled under and devoured by hungry snapping turtles.

Nature’s way: life and death in a bottomland beaver bog, always wildlife rich.

Eli Terry just struck noon from its dining-room shelf and here I sit, fresh off a few hours of procrastination, still waiting for that final stocking report — the most important one, of course.

Actually, I guess I’m stretching it a bit to call my morning activity procrastination. Reading is seldom that mindless, especially reading with a purpose, not just to kill time or escape reality, which would indeed qualify as that dirty P word we can all occasionally succumb to. Fact is I’m still studying naughty American novelist Henry Miller (1891-1980), am nearly finished with Robert Ferguson’s biography, fascinating stuff. Miller’s novels were banned here and in England for the high crimes of blasphemy, profanity and unpopular truths, never welcomed by the Chamber of Commerce, clergy or high school administrators. Yes, Miller — auto-didactic to boot (the shame of it) — was banned in Boston and New York, would likely have been lynched from a short, stout scrub oak in Texas or Alabama if the high and mighty down there could have gotten their hands on him. And to think my captivating little research project got started with late West Whately gadfly publisher Jimmy Cooney, that irascible pacifist and card-carrying socialist I stumbled upon many years ago as an unapologetic, hormone-driven teen on Poplar Hill.

Truth be told, I still refuse to say I’m sorry for discovering such “corrupting” influences all on my own. In fact, thank the forest gods I was happenstance exposed to free spirits like Cooney and Marshall Smith, dangerous subversives to police chiefs and Boy Scout leaders, but in fact no scarier than sparkling water bubbling from a Guinea Gulch spring. I say when you find such a wellspring you best drop to your knees, cup your hands and savor it like the fountain of youth. You’ll find refreshing, nourishing lessons unattainable in a stifling classroom where Old Glory and Christ’s cross hang for all to worship. Yes, Cooney and his radical retinue indirectly led me off the beaten path to many exciting places, some taboo in the mainstream press, and I think I’m a better man for it.

But, anyway, back to the task at hand, that of cranking out a weekly column, this one revisiting a now clarified tale from last week before moving to the mundane, weekly spring stocking report so eagerly awaited by the truck-following rabble. Isn’t that what newspapers are for? The rabble? Maybe. If so, must I feed this hungry crowd of discriminating big-box taste? Should I feel guilty or proud? You be the judge.

But, again, let us not digress. First the clarification, which takes us back to last week’s story about recent coyote carnage in my Greenfield neighborhood, a tale I knew was true but could not confirm. Well, that little lead into my column smoked out the facts in a jiffy. The phone message arrived at my home shortly after 9 a.m. Friday while I was down at Sunken Meadow walking the dog and searching the marshy woods along the perimeter for erect, leftover, dark-brown ostrich ferns that point a man toward tight spring fiddleheads, a tasty treat I annually enjoy — steamed, then smothered in butter with Parmesan cheese; excellent if you combine them with tortellini, bowtie noodles will do.

Enough of that. Back to the deer story I keep getting distracted from. As I predicted, I didn’t have all my facts straight, just enough rumor to get my point across: that deer can be vulnerable to our most efficient predators even long after deep, tiring snow has disappeared from the landscape. To refresh your memory, I reported that a pregnant doe had been savagely killed in the backyard of a thickly settled neighborhood near my home, and that the coyotes had left behind an intact fetus. Because I knew coyotes typically focus first on the entrails when devouring a fresh deer kill, I suspected they had eaten one twin fetus and left the other for later. Well, I had it wrong. There was no fawn visible, just a dead doe with prominent nipples, its carcass left virtually intact minus its guts and internal organs. Apparently, the coyotes had eaten the unborn and left the adult for later consumption.

Interestingly, the coyotes used a black chain-link fence for assistance. They had chased the pregnant doe through a wetland depression along a brook, and when the deer tried to circle back through an unfamiliar backyard, it ran flush into the fence, buckling a sturdy vertical post near its death bed. The homeowners, Fred Steiner and family of Meadow Lane, were alerted to the kill by the predawn barking of their dog. They then spotted the pathetic prostrate animal after first light, not a pretty sight. So, that is the rest of the story. Eat your heart out, Paul Harvey. Glad to finally find the facts.

So, now, on to trout stocking, starting with a call from old pal Peter Mallett, brainchild of the Millers River Fishermen’s Association (MRFA), which generously supplements state stocking on the Millers River and elsewhere in eastern Franklin County. This year Mallet and friends will stock more than 400 pounds of rainbow and brook trout from Plymouth’s Gilbert Hatchery. Many of the trout will be in the 16- to 18-inch category, with an added bonus of several four pounders. Mallet claims the Gilbert Hatchery was first owned by the clipper ship captain who was responsible for introducing brown trout to America. The good captain used to transport brown-trout eggs across the Atlantic on blocks of ice, then hatch, raise and stock them in eastern Massachusetts and beyond. Today, Gilbert’s rainbows are distinctive “Donovan rainbow trout,” with brilliant coloration differentiating them from the duller state-stocked fish, according to Mallett.

MRFA has scheduled three consecutive 11 a.m. Saturday kids’-stocking days, the first this week, when people will assemble in the Birch Hill Dam parking lot in South Royalston. Youths will assist with the stocking, then have free reign to fish afterward. The subsequent kids’ stocking dates and sites are: May 7 at Alan Rich Park in Athol, and May 14 at the Orange Sewage Treatment Plant off Route 2A in Orange.

As for the state-stocking schedule, the Western District will again hit the upper Deerfield River in Florida, Charlemont and Buckland, while doing Cold River in Florida and Charlemont and North Pond in Florida as well. Sadly, nothing to report on the Valley District stocking destinations. First time in years, so cut them a break. They were busy stocking Wednesday, the office assistant out sick for her third day. I waited all day for the list, phoned twice, no luck. Sorry, fellas. I have to believe it’s time for the Green and North rivers to get some fish after a long drought. No guarantees. Just a hunch. Educated guess. It’s almost May. Way overdue.

Off I go.

A sighting, speculation and a rumor: that’s all I’ve got. Guess it’ll have to do.

First the sighting — two deer, likely does, one larger than the other. I spotted them after 7 Saturday morning. They were feeding in the fresh green stubble of a spring straw field as I took a hard right toward the gate to Sunken Meadow. There they stood like statues, gray-brown in the pale morning light, frozen and totally alert to my presence. When I pulled up short of the gate, grabbed the key and exited the vehicle, the deer bounded off toward the tree line, white tails pointing to the heavens, a pretty sight.

Hmmm? Interesting. Couldn’t imagine they weren’t the same deer I had watched there all through the summer and fall last year. Problem was there had been three of them, a doe and twin fawns, which I watched catch up in size to their mother as the year progressed. Maybe someone had killed the other fawn, I thought, in the road or hunting. Or maybe it was there but off to the side along the tree line and I just didn’t see it. Doubtful. I thought there were only two.

Anyway, I moved along, driving my truck down into the lower level, letting Buddy out and taking my regular route, not really giving much further thought to the deer. Yeah, of course I looked up along the wooded lip several times as I walked the first leg of my trek, just trying to pick them out standing motionless and observing us, but no luck. If they were there, I didn’t see them. But the story got far more interesting after I returned home and went to the roadside mailbox an hour or two later.

As I walked to fetch the mail, my neighbor called my name from across the road. She was walking toward me and obviously wanted to talk. So I crossed the road and she told me about carnage in the neighborhood, an overnight coyote deer-kill in a backyard of a cluster of homes. The wife of a cop, I trusted her information, still do.

“The animal-control officer got a call and investigated,” she said. “He arrived on the scene and found the doe torn to shreds with an unborn fawn pretty much intact.”

Apparently, the homeowners heard something going on but couldn’t see what had happened until daybreak. Then they saw the dead deer lying near their house, the yard bordered on the north by a wetland hollow. My neighbor didn’t like what she had heard, was concerned about her dogs, her horse. “Have you seen coyotes in your yard?” she asked.No. I had never seen a coyote on my property but my son once had, five or six of them by the flower bed in the full midnight moonlight. He was concerned about his favorite tiger cat, Big Boy, who survived that late-night canine visit. Furthermore, I knew of no coyote problems around my neighbor’s hen house, which is surprising, given the amount of close coyote talk I routinely hear around my place year around. “They’re pretty elusive,” I told her, “very good at lurking along the edges and staying out of sight.”

Curious, I tried to track down further information about the incident but came up empty. So I cannot claim to have every detail precisely as it happened. I tried, making several fruitless trips to the home where the kill reportedly occurred, but couldn’t get an answer to the doorbell with many cars in the yard. Then, after learning the homeowners’ names, I left a phone message and  killed time reading a field guide to ferns, portable phone within reach. No return call. Determined to get the story, I called the number twice from work and got the answering machine. Must have had caller ID. Apparently the people didn’t want any publicity. I wouldn’t have used their names or address if they didn’t want me to. It’s easy to get around superfluous details like that with a story like this. It’s the tale that’s relevant, not necessarily names and addresses. To say it happened in the Greenfield Meadows would have been good enough for me. Oh well. You’ll just have to take it for what it is: a story based on fact that is generally accurate.

Of course, the same could be said of my speculation that the dead doe was the missing twin from my Saturday sighting. There’s no way of knowing that, either. I can’t even say those deer were the ones I knew. Still, given what I later learned and the way the scenario developed, my hunch is that those were the same deer minus a pre-dawn coyote-kill. At least it makes a lot of sense to me.

Imagine that. No snow or cold or injury to weaken the deer; just a pregnant doe in her vulnerable last trimester, and still no match for a coyote pack. Who knows? Maybe that doe was carrying twin fawns and there was only one left. Stuffed from a tasty meal, the coyotes probably intended to return for fetid fetus cutlets.

Overnight rain had a remarkable effect on my yard Wednesday, lifting my spirits on a gray, dreary April morning. Spring can do that to a man, even one t’other side of his peak.

What immediately drew my attention on the way out to the kennel was a lilac bush along the western perimeter of my property. Barren with no hint of green Tuesday — bingo! — it was sporting vivacious, quarter-inch, green buds Wednesday. No exaggeration! Overnight. No sun. Chalk it up to the power of spring rain: lawn greening as though a watercolorist perched on a maple bough mischievously splashed blotches here and there with a flick of his saturated brush; bright yellow daffodils against the house drooping, fists clenched, a day after standing straight as a preacher in bright sun. I can only hope their lethargy had nothing to do with poison Fukushima rain. What a dreadful disaster, one we’re hearing not nearly enough about. Loony Charlie Sheen and Sarah Palin are much more important, right? So are tightwads John Boehner and Eric Cantor, gleaming their pompous air of self-importance and deceit. Then, even when the news does bemoan those haywire Japanese reactors, it’s played up as nothing to worry about. They’d have you believe last week’s three-million-gallon Pacific dump was no worse than a drunken hiker emptying his bladder into a Quabbin feeder stream. Don’t buy it. It’s misinformation aimed at the ignorant. Cheap “news.”

But let us not digress … as my flowers bloom and bushes bud, backyard Hinsdale Brook is roaring with youthful enthusiasm, and so is the swollen Green River it feeds a short bit downstream. Speaking of which, you should have heard the peepers in riverside Sunken Meadow Monday afternoon. The sound was new, overwhelming and encompassing, like you were trapped in a small, breathless chamber with billions of the chirpy little buggers belching. I took a quick ramble down there with the dogs Wednesday morning and not a peep. What a difference a day or two makes. It was still warm but soggy, a steady rain falling. I stayed just long enough to stretch my legs, wet my shoulders and observe the surging river — Tiger Lily plump with pups, due anytime, waddling along; Buddy sprinting, leaping, hopelessly infected with joie de vivre. I think Lily will have a big litter. Fun. Perfect time of year for puppies.

Honestly, I didn’t know young Buddy had it in him, the rascal. Hey, sometimes a young lad can surprise you. Well, I guess those ladies I hear pitching their cougarlife.com website late nights between sports talk on WFAN-New York wouldn’t be surprised. They have faith in young pups. We’re not talking here about those extinct Eastern cougars. No sir. These radio cougars appear to be thriving in Eastern metropolitan areas; same ferocious growl, gentler bite.

Ooops! That email I’ve been awaiting finally arrived. I just heard the beep. Back to the task at hand, that of trout stocking and tidbits. Then back to the parlor La-Z-Boy, where I’ll raise the footrest high, flip off my Birkenstocks and resume a captivating study of American novelist Henry Miller; he and Anais Nin, their twisted, tangled labyrinth of lies and secrets. Or was it a nest? Doesn’t matter. Fact is they were fascinating artists — blasphemous, erotic sinners whose books were for many years banned in this country and England. Imagine that! George Orwell called Miller the only living writer of the English language worth reading, and his books were banned where English is spoken. What makes Miller and Nin even more interesting from my perspective is their connection to a Whately man I once knew from afar. Question is, why did it take me so long to discover these literary icons?

Well, I guess if you’re inquisitive and open-minded, you’ll find important stuff sooner or later, even if you were a rebel who dismissed school as a waste of time when you could have been spoon-fed by some droning, upright pedant, just another 200-pound sleeping pill so common in education.

I guess I didn’t miss much. I have always found it more meaningful to solve my own mysteries.

Enough!

When Bill Hubbard died last week at 91, the Pioneer Valley lost its dean of antique dealers. With his passing went a moving, breathing repository of knowledge to which I once had privileged access. I usually took his advice as gospel, and on the rare occasion I strayed — once — I got scalded. Lesson learned. Bill knew antiques and those who peddled them.

My first memory of Bill, known to his closest friends and wife Eleanor as “Hub,” is a lean, tallish, balding and bespectacled man with a professorial air about him, the father of my best friend, from Sunderland. I was in the fifth grade and had met this friend, the late Jon Hubbard, playing baseball. We became instant pals and swapped sleepover weekends at each other’s homes through junior high school, wearing a deep bicycle path between South Deerfield and Sunderland.

I didn’t know it then but Bill, his classic home and its Americana planted a seed in fertile loam blanketing my bedrock; gray, cranial matter in which it would eventually sprout, take root and bear tasty fruit. It was Bill who showed me what it meant to be a New Englander with deep Connecticut Valley roots. The decorating style he introduced to me was at first, in my wayward, distracted youth, ignored, then chased with hungry passion as an adult collector and hunter. Fact is I’m still collecting. Always will. Not to mention reading and exploring. All because of what I observed around that Hubbard homestead.

At the beginning, I recall the shop, the office, the barn and the customers. Then there was hired hand Dave Pinardi from North Amherst, a pleasant North Amherst chap who reminded me a lot of my artist Uncle Ray and repaired furniture and picture frames and whatever between visits from customers; also everyone’s favorite insurance man, Billy Burns, then a recent Deerfield grad performing odd jobs around the place, taking us to his city-league ballgames at night. That was before Bill had opened his auction gallery, and his shop drew an eclectic, distinguished crowd: from tall Amherst tycoon Walter Jones in that big Stetson hat (I think it was a Stetson) and devilish grin, to flamboyant Poet Laureate Archibald Macleish in one of his flashy tartan kilts, to the first openly gay couple I ever laid eyes upon, New Yorkers to whom I later made a few weekend antique deliveries to their secluded Ashfield country home. My introduction to these alternative types taught me at a young and impressionable age that just because someone is “different” doesn’t mean they’re weird or dangerous. I found the two men to be bright, articulate, genial and generous, also interesting, and I will always entertain fond memories of them and their warm demeanor.

After he had opened the North Amherst auction gallery that made him a small fortune, I vividly recall the time Bill came upstairs early one morning, woke Jon and me and asked us if we wanted to take a ride and make a few bucks. We popped out of bed, threw on our clothes and accompanied his crew — two vans and a U-Haul truck as I recall — to the picturesque western corridor of Connecticut, where we cleaned out a colonial hilltown mansion from cellar to attic, a fascinating treasure hunt I will never forget. I once even worked as a runner at his auction but regretfully didn’t stick with it. By then I had discovered other enticing interests and couldn’t get far enough away from adult supervision. But I came back to Bill as an adult and built a new friendship I cherished. He had a classy, venerable way about him and taught me things I will never forget, may someday even share with my son and grandsons if ever they become interested in arts and antiques and the hands that crafted them.

I visited Bill at the first nursing home he entered in Hadley several years ago, then saw him often at Charlene Manor, right down the road from me. But I never did get to the Holyoke Soldiers Home he died at. It was faraway and too difficult. Every time I walk into one of those places I remember my late grandmother, the one who bailed me out of many jams, begging me, tears flowing, to take her home. It left a permanent scar. Have I a choice, no one will ever get me into one of those places. Sadly, sometimes there is no choice.

I miss talking to Bill at his museum-quality antique home. We’d sit there in matching La-Z-Boys talking about this and that, maybe even gossiping a bit — that rare, diminutive Deerfield tap table between us, carved shore birds and books behind him, Miss Childs’ handsome, Federal, tiger-maple desk and bookcase from Conway facing us, its ancient lacquered patina gleaming like a harbor beacon. I loved to pick Bill’s brain and feel fortunate that he welcomed my queries. Life is all about the interesting people you meet. I have met many. Bill was one. Hopefully, there will be many more.

I’m sure I will often think of Bill Hubbard before I join him among the departed; I already do. It was he who placed a precious Sanderson family tall chest in my home, and it was he who warned against buying that four-drawer chest I overpaid for. His spirit lives in both bureaus, and it’ll soon inhabit a special riverside burial ground I never tire of visiting.

Bill and I were brothers of sorts, our deepest roots crossing in many places, some bright, some dark, all sacred. We were kindred valley spirits and damn proud of it.

You never know where a brief walk with the dogs will take you.

I finally found my way back to Sunken Meadow late last week for my first visit of the New Year. The field is wide open, minus a slim cuff of granular corn-snow along the southern edge, where the sun is obstructed in the partial shadows of naked wetland cover and tall, bare hardwoods along a bordering, 15-foot-high lip. I’ve taken the short trip there twice daily ever since and have enjoying every second, so peaceful and private.

My springer spaniels also love the small, secluded riverside depression, romping to a joyous songbird symphony through rows of Christmas trees and a thin bordering wetland — mostly sumac, its pale red fruit scattered along the edge, also alders and wild rose, no sign of cattail patches that were obvious last fall. Where they went, I do not know, perhaps flattened by snowstorms. The dogs, bred for high energy and endurance, stay very busy, noses high and alert, investigating every scent, splashing through large, steel-blue puddles, the brushy edges soon to be mallard nesting grounds. Who knows? Maybe wood and black ducks as well.

Lily, six weeks pregnant and showing, has slowed a tiny bit but displays no sign of that tell-tale waddle, the excess girth not dampening her spirit one iota until it’s time to head home. Then she stands below the tailgate and gets psyched for the leap before adorably wiggling her flank and jumping up, no problem once she puts her mind to it.

The rows of Christmas trees — infant, mature and in-between, some flagged — stand out against the drab, March-brown field. Upon close inspection, there are fresh, red, root-like sprouts clinging to the frozen turf here and there, soon to be rich, green growth that’ll need chopping or mowing, maybe even uprooting at some point. A tall, broad pignut hickory dominates the meadow north of center, towering over a shorter mature tree some 100 feet west, maybe half its height and gnarly. I still haven’t identified that tree but noticed for the first time this week that it once had a larger twin. The stubby tree that’s still standing is connected along the ground to rotten bowl-like remains of its thicker, vanished twin, which must have fallen years ago. Soon I will bring along “Sibley’s Guide to Trees,” an illustrated bible of trees and their identifiable parts by Concord author/artist David Allen Sibley, better known for his bird books. Maybe I’ll have a positive identification before the leaves pop. Then again, maybe not. But who cares? There’s no rush. That tree is not nearly as regal as the mature hickory, aristocratic in every sense as it towers over the meadow like a presidential monument.

Monday was the first day I walked to the water’s edge and focused on the Green River, running about perfect for wader-fishing. The water is deep and cold enough to hold feeding trout just about anywhere. Problem is that there are probably few trout left this time of year, with the water just right. When the state liberally stocks the pretty stream in the weeks to come, most of those fish will be quickly hooked where they are dumped by a parade of truck-followers. Then, when the water drops to its summer level, the few fish that survive will have limited refuge. That’s always been the problem on Green River: It’s too shallow to fish in most places during the summer. By then, whatever trout are left retreat to the deepest pools, which are few, easy to fish and thus quickly fished out. Probably a man with patience and determination could find a few holdovers this time of year, but likely not enough to make the effort worthwhile. Sad but true. Yes, the Green is now just another put-and-take stream.

As I stood and watched the swollen river flow strong and green, faraway whitewater flashing in the sunlight above and below me, for some reason I reminisced back to the last time I had stood in riverside observation back in December. That day I was standing on the upper plateau looking far down a steep bank to a ruffled section of flat water disturbed by a brisk, cold, north wind. It was just before Christmas and the bitter wind was penetrating my Polarfleece jacket, creating an uncomfortable chill as the dogs scurried about free, easy and unaffected. On the water were two beautiful mergansers or redheads, both males, seemingly enjoying the afternoon. I remember watching them and wondering why in God’s name free migratory creatures like them would choose to stay so far north when they could be swimming in southern climes. I guess for the same reason a man remains in an dead-end job, a woman in an abusive relationship for a lifetime. It’s what they know. Change can be disruptive. What is it they say? That familiarity breeds contentment? Something like that. But you can’t convince me those ducks would not have been better off in Maryland, Virginia, the Carolinas or even south Jersey, for that matter. But no. There they were, totally content in frigid New England winds. Who am I to judge? They looked perfectly happy. To each its own, I guess.

When you look at Green River this time of the year, you totally understand that it came by its name due to its greenish hue. Called Pocommeagon by the Natives, then Green River by colonial settlers, the river runs a grayish-green this time of year and after hard summer rains; likewise the tributary Hinsdale Brook, centerline of which establishes the northern boundary of my Greenfield home lot. The green tint of that backyard stream comes from clay banks a mile upstream, where powdery gray silt is washed into the flow. That type of clay must be prevalent throughout the Green River drainage.

Although I cannot be certain, I must assume from what I’ve read that the Native name also meant Green River and the English settlers adopted it in their own tongue. As for the spelling, well, because the Natives had no written language, their words have always been spelled phonetically and, I might add, inconsistently. Deerfield historian George Sheldon spelled the Native version of Green River the way it’s shown above, while Greenfield historian Francis M. Thompson spelled it Picomegan, and a more-contemporary report published by the Massachusetts Historical Commission spells it Pocommegan. Take your pick. I guess there is no right or wrong. Although I prefer the look and sound of Thompson’s word, I’d probably lean toward the state spelling for the sake of consistency. Problem is that I seldom publish the Native name and will thus probably have to look it up again the next time I do. I’ll likely then go through this whole footnote issue another time. Oh well, such are the drawbacks of writing a weekly column, far from unbearable.

And to think this all began with a refreshing morning walk through Sunken Meadow. God, I love a walk; sets the blood, the brain aflow.

What for a man to do? It’s mid March, cabin fever fading, that of spring ascending like sweet sap from deep-seated roots, yet winter still, snow too deep to drive or even park off-road, comfortable walking for snowshoers and snowmobile-trail hikers only. Soon, annoying mud will appear. But I guess we all have our ways of getting through it and staying content.

Me, well, I’m on my usual late-winter reading spree. You never know where these indoor diversions can lead, but for me usually to history, literature, politics or all of the above, most often the latter. Must be in my blood or core. Yes, idle time can be a treble-hook that snags and drags you through some wild, thought-provoking places, swallowing you to your chin in exploratory quicksand before you can escape. This winter, I’ve kept busy reading Hamsun and Didion and McPhee, a little Updike, some Kropotkin, Tolstoy and Goldman, then Orwell, of course. Seems I always come back to Orwell, that visionary British “New Journalist,” cutting edge.

Before someone suggests involuntary 30-day observation at the local loony bin, let me assure you I also read mainstream stuff, such as the biographies of Mantle, Koufax and Stengel. Could I get anymore mainstream than that? American heroes, no less. So, see, no need to worry. I still have both oars in the water. But then came the kicker: a biography of rebel American (or is it un-American) journalist I.F. Stone, to whose bi-weekly newsletter I was introduced as a boy by a man living in a radical little village tucked into southwestern Franklin County’s hills. Must be something in the water up there, because that pretty little slice of upland paradise had similar political leanings during Daniel Shays’ day.

I remember way back when being swept away by Izzy Stone’s courage to report truth when others in the media ignored it, printing instead government lies as unchallenged gospel. So, when I found Myra MacPherson’s 2006 biography cheap, in paperback from discount Daedalus Books, I snapped it up and couldn’t put it down. In fact, the book so captivated me that I told a couple of colleagues it should be required reading for all J-schools. We then revisited the subject after deadline and wandered to a place called Poplar Hill, where a “leftist” publisher once resided. As I dredged for memories of the man and tried to describe his literary journal, I realized that, despite having read his wife’s autobiography nearly 20 years ago, I knew little about the quarterly publication. So off I went … way off the beaten path, in fact, on a little discovery mission.

Cursory investigation (Isn’t Google great?) brought me to familiar names like Henry Miller, Anais Nin and D.H. Lawrence, all naughty artists who were banned in Boston and everywhere else in the country during the Depression era. Not surprisingly, all of their bylines appeared in the late Poplar Hill editor’s short-lived, later reincarnated journal, Lawrence’s stuff appearing posthumously in the late 1930’s when our publisher was living in Woodstock, N.Y. Our man and the mostly American authors and poets only he dared to publish were called “bohemian” and “expatriate,” both pejorative among the Windsor-knot, meetinghouse gang. No wonder that fiery little man with the trademark Navy-blue beret so intrigued me as a bright-eyed, impressionable teen observing him, his retinue and their philosophical shtick from afar. I remember the man as spirited, bright and articulate, talking, maybe even arguing about pacifism or protest or government lies when they were fashionabe subjects.

Over the years since, I have often viewed from faraway his classic, Federal, New England home — multi-paned rooftop cupola gleaming in the morning sun — while seated against a massive red pine, shotgun across my lap, hunting deer or turkeys. Sitting quietly there, my mind wanders back to my adolescence, when students and professors and gadflies like Stone and that irascible Whately publisher were peacefully protesting in the streets, raising a ruckus at town meetings or wherever they pleased.

That was long ago. The good old days to some, me included. I do not believe I will experience another American political climate like it. Preventative measures are now in place, Big Brother watching from traffic lights, rooflines and stylish street lamps.

Where are Izzy Stone and Jimmy Cooney when we need them? That’s the question I find myself asking these days, with our Gulf ecosystem poisoned as radiation hemorrhages into the Far Eastern sea and sky? Thankfully, I was around to meet these men before dissent was squashed and thought-police reigned.

Those men from my past taught me that “alternative” is not always undesirable, no matter what Bill O’Reilly, Glenn Beck and the WEEI morning boys would have you believe.

The roars of March, brought by our first hard rains in months, emanated from my backyard early this week — one a constant, soothing roar, the other sudden, violent and threatening, like a bear trying to chase off Old Man Winter; one welcoming spring, the other expelling winter.

The continuous roar was the brook that has lain dormant since December, always flowing gently under ice and two feet of insulating snow which prevented it from freezing. Even during frigid days and sub-zero nights, never once did the steady flow stop as it did last snow-starved winter. I remember marveling several times this year at the stream’s determined flow through deep, sporadic openings, riffles visible, rattle clear, like dogged passion that could not be killed or restrained. By Monday afternoon, the stream had swelled, turned brown and carved open a continuous, central, snake-like channel sluicing through the icy constriction. I knew the surface would soon be consumed and washed away in big, dangerous chunks, widening the stream out to its banks. And sure enough, upon returning from work at midnight, I could hear that first, unmistakable, cold, dark purr of March, the sound of spring purging winter with a calming fury. Again, like untamed passion, it’s wise to stand back and observe from above, afar. Even a experienced whitewater man riding the torrent for the joy of it could be decapitated by an overhanging branch or vine, maybe dumped, washed away and snagged in a morbid tangle among hidden, undercut roots and debris. Only fools take lightly nature’s overwhelming power.

The quick, thunderous, bear’s roar came from a closer source; it was a slate-roof avalanche tobogganing the final, stubborn pile of shaded snow off the north woodshed ell and crashing it into the wall of a stubby kitchen wart across the slim, square alcove. I jumped up to see if there was damage. No. Everything fine. The resulting snow pile stood high above the windows at its peak, had filled the space with chunky sheets of dense, icy snow that reached all the way up to the opposite wall’s windowsill. Any higher and it would have blasted out the glass and ruined my day. Had a rugged, beefy man been standing in its way, he would have been chopped in half; like the raging stream, long-held snow shooting off a slate roof is nothing to fool with.

It’s funny, the more I read and heard about collapsing roofs this winter, the more I worried about that ominous pile of snow deposited onto the woodshed roof from the one above. It was piled so high and heavy atop the ridge and against the house that it had filled the eight- to 10-foot gap between the perpendicular roofs and I could step from one to the other. When a friend recently told me he was raking in 100 bucks an hour removing snow from central and eastern Massachusetts roofs, I uttered a wry chuckle and informed him that, although I understood his clients’ concerns, I had chosen another route. The way I looked at it, my old buildings have survived worse winters over parts of four centuries, so I wasn’t going to fret about 2011, no matter how determined newspapers and nightly newscasters were to terrify me. I guess my instinct served me well, saved money. No roof collapses and, miraculously, not so much as a drop of water leaking into the house, barn or sheds beneath slate roof extending almost the length of a football field.

Yes, the old tavern made it through another cold, snowy New England winter just fine, thank you, and will probably weather many more, friendly spirits smiling from above. Soon the bushes will be blooming, the turkeys will be gobbling, the kids will be fishing, Tim Duprey will be walking my roofs to replace slates now lying atop tall snow piles, and I’ll find the right contractor to build and install a copper roof for the barn cupola. It’s never-ending, yes, but sure does keep life interesting.

A redeeming element of tough winters is the way they enhance spring-fever euphoria, an annual affliction that raises spirits and rivers, and often caused me problems in my younger days. Undaunted, I welcome spring with enthusiasm, not fear.