“An army’s bravest men are its cowards. The death which they would not meet at the hands of the enemy, they will meet at the hands of their officers, with never a flinching.

Monday, final day of our shortest month, a long, cold, snowy February. The trees and bushes are covered with heavy crust as a limb-busting, uprooting rain pelts a slim, exposed slice of flagstone terrace fronting the house under a dense four-foot mound of snow from the slate roof. Audible splashes splatter the clapboards, clearing an inset, two-foot granite face fronting interior cellar bricks. The front-yard bushes and ornamental trees are drooping ominously to the ground, shiny, straining not to snap, frozen in duress until rain and sun removes the tiring snow and unlocks nature’s frozen grip. A perfect day to isolate indoors, let the wheels spin, risky indeed. Never know where it’ll lead a man like me.

So here I sit in my comfortable study, thinking, 9-pointer peering over my head, flames dancing and cordwood crackling in the Rumford fireplace, tall, brass, Federal andirons casting a radiant, orange glow. Having read Jane Kramer’s “Cowbow,” John McPhee’s “Travels in Georgia” and, of all things, a Peter Kropotkin essay on anarchism, I’ve just returned from the mailbox, nothing exciting. But now my shoulders are wet, my wool socks worse, totally my fault. Keen Kreeks are made for stream crossings on summer treks, not tiptoeing through slushy driveway puddles during winter rainstorms. I walked right past a pair of warm, dressed Gokey boots standing beside the hot soapstone stove. Never even considered half-lacing them on. Stupid, I guess. Either that or plain stubborn. Must be that obstinate Yankee streak I’ve coddled for a lifetime, hopefully will only reinforce as I age. Why obey rules and regs when nobody’s here to enforce them? That’s my motto. Guess it must be the Kropotkin in me. A proud Kropotkin at that. I find that stern law-and-order crowd stifling, unimaginative, not for me. I value living in a free country, one that’s getting less free by the minute, if you allow it. I don’t. Refuse. Even find myself fantasizing about retiring at the end of a secluded dirt road somewhere, only the sun, the moon, the stars and critters watching.

My knees are still stiff, tender and cranky after snowshoeing to a Saturday ice-fishing gig on southern Vermont’s Harriman Reservoir. I went with fellas who choose secluded, toasty duck blinds and ice shanties to bring out their little boy within, away from critical eyes. Me, well, I still enjoy a taste of the past now and then. Can’t deny it. But I don’t really need to isolate on a frozen lake or hidden pond to break free; am defiant, I guess, unafraid to occasionally “let go” in the comforts of home. Again, must be the independent, sometimes irascible Yankee in me, god love him. But who knows? It may have nothing to do with colonial rascals or the austere Puritan deacon with a Quaker wife in my background. Could just as easily be the wild-Irish blood of Great-Uncle Dan — a man his Keane siblings spoke of with a twinkle of feigned shame in their eyes — or maybe even the maritime merchants and fishermen from my Nova Scotia roots. They were Acadian French of the name Comeau, their seaside Bay of Fundy hamlet called Comeauville. How could there not have been free spirits among them, probably many more than their women would ever admit, even posthumously? Myself, I have nothing to hide, am what I am, say take it or leave it. Some take. Many have left. But my philosophy has led me to places few “respectable” men have visited, and I do believe I’m a better man for it. Many would disagree. Why argue? It’s pointless. Even my most ardent detractors will praise this free country. They just interpret that bromide different than me, try to strip freedom from and fill prisons with those they say can’t “handle it.” But who are these people, anyway, and who is it they protect? Those are the questions I ask. The answer doesn’t always settle right with me … which brings me to my late son and a pair of war veterans I know, born a generation apart.

First my namesake son, who left this imperfect world three months ago, age 28, far too young. His wife, still numb with heartache, re-posted some of his music videos overnight on Facebook. I just now watched them to rekindle poignant memories and procrastinate a bit, must admit I’m gleaming with pride at his open defiance. Yes, it’s true he had matured and softened his rebellious ways before passing, but there were authority figures from his past he would never forgive, or forget. I wish I could play his lyrics to the rigid flock he scolds, the same people I myself have battled and will continue dismissing as hypocrites and frauds till my final breath. I’d like to tell them to listen carefully, that he’s speaking to them, looking them square in the face, no fear, trying to point them toward the faded path to empathy and understanding, not prosecution and punishment. I accept his views as sound and just, but the people he’s speaking to are not listeners. They’re guardians of convention and conformity, often devoted to a Christian doctrine that places us here temporarily to suffer for a better life after. Yes, we’re supposed to listen to them, and kneel in devout reverence. This vindictive, judgmental lot prefers to sit in private lunchrooms to proclaim to any who’ll listen that the kid’s parents were his problem, and theirs, and the world’s. Their colleagues nod in solemn agreement. Dr. Phil — that tiresome Texas bore, champion of American housewives — would agree.Not me. I’m proud to be of a different persuasion.

I’m reminded of a Facebook tribute posted the day after Gary died, one written by a man I remember as a boy at my house after school, weekends, you name it, a friend of my younger son. He was acting up in school as a teen and, his parents said, heading down the wrong path. They intervened at graduation time and pushed him into the Army, which took him to Iraq, a place from which few have escaped unscathed. Some boys go off to war, buy-in and return to law-enforcement, security, sales jobs and National Guard units throughout the land. Others travel to faraway nations to “save” oppressed people and are greeted by hateful, penetrating eyes that scream, “Go away!” and force them to ask “Why am I here?” When these young men of conscience return home, they tend to drop out, drown their sorrows, get sober and carry the mail, silent and sad, confused, trying to piece it all together. I have known such men who  served in Vietnam, now this boy from the next generation, smart, sensitive, insightful. His day-after tribute to my son read: “Gary was the first person to teach me that authority figures can be jerks. He was right. Still is. R.I.P., Gary.” This a remark fresh from the hot sands of hell by someone sent there for “seasoning” and to learn about respect and obedience, no less. Looks like the men barking orders couldn’t break him.

That young man is similar to the college roommate, teammate and roadmate I befriended a generation ago. An illegitimate twin with a selfish stepdad, he was dropped as a 17-year-old virgin in the late 1960’s onto an Air Force base overlooking Da Nang from a high, sacred mountain. He returned home an angry young man addicted to the best heroin money could buy. Although buried deep, his resentment and fury would surface after nights of heavy drinking. We’d retire to our frat house, apartment or motel after a long night carousing and talk till the sun came up. The conversation would go back to “Nam,” to Lackland Air Force Base, to the officers who ruled him. He’d get agitated, squint his hateful green eyes and scoff, “Give ’em a half a thimbleful of brains and one more stripe than you, and you have to do what they say. They’re in for 10 years and have one more stripe you.” Despite this bias, he held a curious fondness for one “lifer” he would have typically detested. The man was a captain or major whose wife had taken a shine to my friend, a tall, handsome bad-boy with a reputation as a surly, hair-triggered slugger on the base’s fast-pitch softball team. The weekly base newsletter had only to publish a photo of his shorts, tube-socked calves and cleats and everyone knew it was “Mr. Incorrigible,” known up and down the East Coast for towering home runs that disappeared into white summer clouds and landed far behind outfield fences. Everyone else wore their uniform. A steamy and scandalous affair with this officer’s wife ultimately led to a vicious scrap at the officers’-club bar where my friend did not belong. He was promptly cuffed and stuffed and spent 33 days in the brig, what he often called the best 33 days he spent in the Air Force. He faced a court martial for his crimes and settled for an early-out general discharge. The Air Force was happy to be rid of him and the feeling was mutual. But get this: Two or three years after the incident  had rocked the base, the officer-husband he had beaten up came to Amherst annually as my buddy’s weekend guest for the UMass homecoming football game.

I never really asked any probing questions or tried to sort it all out, just watched the two men interact like old friends, with warm eye contact, roars of convivial laughter and playful banter in one loud, smoky bar after another, never so much as an angry word or glance. It was confusing to me, but my friend could not understand why. “I’m grateful to him.” he’d explain. “All I wanted was out, and he helped me.”

You can’t make it up. Impossible. But how to make sense of it all? That’s the question. Or, better still, and more pertinent, how did I ever wander off into this rainy-day ramble on February’s final day? Just came to me, I guess, like a cold draft under the woodshed door. It tickled my nostrils with an evocative scent that wafted me away on a sweet little ride fueled by fond memories.

It’s over now but will come again, perhaps liberating another entombed sliver of unconventional, unpopular perspective from this sovereign soul.

After a long, frigid, snowy winter, spring is peeking over partially exposed stonewalls poking through snow beneath naked hardwoods gathering bright midday sun on southern slopes. Soon, on these same sun-splashed hillsides, the first maple sap will flow freely as dense deer yards break up and scatter hither and yon.

In fact, sap buckets are already dangling from taps on stately old maples gracing our early, muddy, rutted upland roads. Yeah, I know tubing is the way to go for maximum production, but forgive me for being old-fashioned and preferring lidded buckets, the sight and the syrup they produce. But that’s just me. Old-timers will tell you plastic tubing cannot duplicate the “fancy” first-run syrup gathered by bucket, a chore for real men, especially in deep snow. It is said that even the lightest amber gathered by tubes is always a hint darker than bucket fancy, even when the tubes siphoning sugar-bush gold into large basin vats are diligently steam-cleaned before each season, a process which, according to those who know best, happens rarely in frugal New England Yankee land. Why? Simple. Because it takes too big a bite out of profit.

I’m sure some will get hopping mad at me for saying such a thing in print, but those who know best say sap collected in galvanized pails produces lighter syrup in every grade. Being no expert, I’ll take them at their word. But, enough of that, I’m not here to discuss the idiosyncrasies of maple-syrup production. Let’s talk about deer, which, like the maple orchards where they sometimes seek winter refuge, can sense spring approaching, thus the many recent predark sightings along our country roads.

Reports of abundant deer sightings started reaching me early last week, when a friend and hunting buddy called to say he had taken a half-hour ride through north Greenfield and Leyden and counted no fewer than 42 deer. “If you have a chance, you ought to take Joey out for a ride some night before supper,” he said. “I think she’d enjoy it.” And, yes, I may take such a ride if everything lines up just right. But to be honest, it’s not urgent. We have seen it before: fields full of deer exiting their winter yards to feed before dispersing to their home ranges.

During a winter like we’ve endured, with deep, cumbersome snow making travel difficult, deer yards draw more animals than during mild winters. A respected deer biologist and friend once told me that a local deer yard near my home likely draws animals 30 to 50 miles from the north and west. When the snow gets deep, dangerous and daunting, deer leave the high country and settle into southern valley slopes that make life easier. Once the snow melts and the woods open up, the deer disappear, wandering back where they came from. That day is now near. But the next couple of weeks should be ideal for sightings of large deer herds. They seem to love the southeastern Leyden hills, along that first upland plateau west of the Connecticut River.

Less than a week after the first of three rapid-fire reports from my hunting buddy, there came a phone call at work from an old South Deerfield friend who’s ventured into photography in the comforts of retirement. He said he’d been watching several deer eat his evergreen landscaping for weeks but had noticed a significant spike last week. He counted 27 deer as we spoke that night and said he probably missed some. He was curious why, suddenly, his backyard herd had tripled or quadrupled. One of his photos accompanies today’s piece; another, of a coyote with a bloody snout from a fresh deer-kill, accompanied last week’s piece. Obviously, there is a deer yard not far from his home. Those deer are gaining mobility and are now traveling deeply trodden trails to his yews, arborvitae and rhododendron. “Maybe I ought to start buying something to feed them,” he chuckled. “It would probably be cheaper.” Yes, most definitely. In fact, a friend of mine likely feeding some of the same deer puts out dried corn on the cob.

The locations I’ve mentioned in Leyden and Deerfield both rest on elevations not far from the Connecticut River, overlooking rich, Hadley-loam bottomlands. Several recent rides I’ve taken through higher country to the west have revealed little if any deer sign. Then, at a party Saturday night, I had a discussion with an upland resident who lives a little more than a mile up the hill from me. He supported my opinion that the deep snow had chased deer into the lowlands. Asked to assess the regular deer crossings along the steep road behind my home, my neighbor said there were none, zero, and there haven’t been any since the New Year. His last deer sighting on daily commutes to and from home occurred during deer season, when the snow was still manageable.

Soon, along the fertile flats that sprout our first tender, green growth of spring, or around cornfield spilth, motorists will observe unusual herds of 50 to 70 evening deer feeding like cattle, not fleeing when cars slow down to watch. In no time they’ll be gone and smaller groups will again start appearing in the upland meadows.

Yes, this winter’s mortality rate was likely higher than normal, but it’s nothing the herd cannot tolerate. Nature doesn’t work that way without human interference.

Deer, snow, coyotes and, um, a hilltown homer, that’s where we’re headed today.

Yes, more interesting feedback, most of it concerning last week’s column about icy snow spelling deer doom. One respondent was a state cop, another a kid I once coached in South Deerfield, the third an old Hampshire League ballplayer who recalled an ancient home run I hit in Shelburne Falls as a 16-year-old high school junior. All three sources had interesting observations to share.

The trooper, Kevin Wesoloski of South Deerfield, wanted to expand upon my unsubstantiated tale of coyote deer carnage discovered by Hampden snowmobilers. He said he’s heard through the grapevine similar stories from West County snowmobilers who’ve come upon gruesome scenes, blood and body parts everywhere, what he called, “a sure sign that our deer herd will suffer this winter.”

“Weso” also described driving Route 9 through the Quabbin the other day and seeing a half-dozen deer in an oak grove, “all appearing to be standing on top of the crust, good for movement but equally bad for their ability to paw through deep snow for acorns.” That site, east of here, received more freezing rain than we did, thus the thicker, sturdier crust. “Here, our hilltown deer are breaking through and sinking to their bellies,” Weso warned.

Accompanying Weso’s e-mail were three trail-camera photos of large, wily, nighttime coyotes standing atop local snow. “Look at the size of these dogs,” he wrote. “Put a couple in a deer yard and tell me they won’t take down the healthy ones. The weak are always first but these critters don’t just stop there.”

His point is valid. Maybe all the whiners out there, the ones who want to protect every beast in God’s creation, even transfer to them human rights, should someday learn how packs of dogs, wild or domestic, kill deer. Canines do not kill a deer before eating it; they kill by eating, after shredding back-leg tendons to immobilize them. Dogs start on the hind quarters, deer groaning in misery, before tearing open the belly and eating whatever’s available, including organs, stomach contents or tiny, tasty fawns in the womb. At least a big cat snaps the neck of its prey before devouring it. Dogs are less merciful. That’s why domestic dogs were shot on sight in the woods a generation and more ago, a practice today less common because of leash laws.

As for the kid I coached who responded to last week’s column, he’s Keith Bohonowicz. A snowmobiler and avid hunter, Boho’s troubled by the deer he’s seen on woodland travels. No, he hasn’t come upon any slaughterhouse scenes like the one I described in Hampden, just deer in obvious deep-snow distress reacting to human intrusion in a peculiar fashion. Two such rapid-fire observations occurred last Wednesday in the West Deerfield/Shelburne woods known locally as “The Old World.”

First, when Boho and his party approached a small, forested, hemlock-bordered spring hole, he noticed many tracks and all the hemlock branches within six feet of the ground torn to shreds right through the bark. It told him that abundant natural feed on the forest floor was inaccessible. Nearby, he noticed movement and spotted four mature does and a skipper standing with a “deer-in-headlights look,” at mid-afternoon. “As the other machines approached, the deer tried to bound up the ridge,” he wrote. “They made it about 25 yards into thicker cover before stopping and letting us pass.”

After meeting a rider at his house and backtracking, they again passed the site about 20 minutes later and the deer were still standing in the same spot, “not feeding, not moving, almost like they were taking a break after the scare. They proceeded to watch us drive by, even when we stopped for a minute or two to take in the spectacular winter view.”

The crew continued west toward Bardwell’s Ferry and, while descending to the railroad tracks, spotted five more deer standing about five yards off the trail. These animals had stress written all over them as they clumsily fled up a hill. “They tried to ascend the ridge and, as I watched the first doe bound off, she could only go about five or 10 yards before stopping to reset herself in the deep snow and bound again. I’ve seen similar scenarios many times and all you see is a white streak and the deer are gone. It took these deer two or three minutes to go 75 yards to the ridge-top, where they stopped like long-distance runners after a race and looked at us like, ‘Why did you make us move?’ The deep snow is having a negative effect on deer and it worries me. In all my years of hunting and snowmobiling, I have never seen deer act in this queer manner.”

My final source, the one who mentioned that home run, is George “Ace” Mislak, an Ashfield native who now lives not far up the road from me on Patten Hill in Shelburne. Mislak didn’t mention coyotes, just his assessment of the deer population near his home and in his old Ashfield haunts.

“I concur that the deer population has gone from slim in the 70’s to great in the 90’s to slim now …,” he wrote. “Billy Meyers of Colrain is my brother-in-law. We agree that there are fewer deer tracks in the snow these days.”

Something else of interest before I get to the long ball: Mislak’s wife recently saw a cougar near their home. “It had snowed just after Christmas and, as my wife was raising the shade and the neighbor was plowing his long driveway, she noticed an animal cross the main road. You can add her to the list of people who have sighted a long-tailed cat. I quizzed her on every detail and, sure enough, she described a cougar. I know it was not a bobcat. We both watched a pair play near our Reynolds Road home a short time before this.”

As for the home run, well, I hesitate to mention it but cannot resist, finally, because it has been referenced so many times over the years by West County ballplayers who witnessed it, including two righthanders who claim to have been the pitcher. This latest mention stirred my curiosity and sent me to The Recorder microfilm Tuesday night in search of written evidence.

The blast Mislak recalled as “a three-run homer that rolled into the brook,” was in fact a two-run job, according to the April 24, 1970 newspaper account. Mohawk coach Bill Pollard reported the home run without additional fanfare. But judging from the tale’s lasting power, that brook had to be a seldom-reached yardstick. I vaguely recall it as a soaring shot straightaway over the left-fielder’s head, wooden bat and soggy spring turf.

That diamond is today gone. I suspect it was the old Arms Academy ballpark — if so, the house that Harper and Wizzie built. I wonder how far that little brook was from home plate? Maybe not so far. Tales seem to get taller with age. But someone must have an idea of distance. Maybe an old-timer knows and could even add other baseball lore from that storied hilltown ballyard now alongside the elementary school.

God, how I love this stuff.

Our snow-cover got more dangerous for deer this week, just as we enter the most vulnerable time of year for the hoofed creatures. I can evaluate snow conditions when observing my dogs on their daily routine, which has been dramatically altered the past few weeks, deep, crusty snow complicating matters.

When I daily open the right side of the large double doors exiting my barn to the backyard, I am greeted by two, deep, manmade footpaths leading in a V toward the brook. One path goes left to the cook shed and kennel, the other straight ahead to the footing of an old, long-ago removed foot-bridge that once crossed the brook to pastures and orchards beyond. Following the lip of the eight-foot-high brook bank, a crossing footpath connects the two legs of the V to form a triangle before extending beyond the V’s right leg and onto my neighbor’s slim slice of brook bank graced by large sugar maples wedged between a sturdy stonewall and the stream.

For weeks my rambunctious English Springer Spaniels have been reluctant to leave the established backyard paths for good reason. Every time they’ve ventured out to explore, they’ve had to negotiate deep, cumbersome, icy snow that they obviously view as dangerous when slipping or breaking through … great news for deer. Why? Because, weighing between 40 and 50 pounds, my dogs and the average Eastern coyotes are about the same size. A wild coyote may be more agile, but not much more. So deductive reasoning tells me that the snow has not been ideal for coyotes chasing weakened winter deer.

That all changed Wednesday, the first day in weeks when my pets could freewheel atop the snow, be it running, prancing or walking; absolutely no sign of caution or trepidation for the first time in a month or more. That’s bad news for deer, which are now yarded up in large dormant herds typically bedded in wooded shelters with a couple of paths leading in and out of the bedding area, paths not unlike the ones traversing my snowed-in backyard. Coyotes will typically monitor such deer yards from the periphery, quickly recognizing, killing and eating any deer noticeably weakened by age, injury or malnutrition; but they cannot do serious damage and take down healthy deer without a little help from Mother Nature. Such help is now present, providing coyotes that hard crust they can run across. Problem is that deer cannot stay on top, instead breaking through with their hoofs, tiring quickly and becoming easy, pathetic prey.

Unconfirmed word out of Hampden — which has had significantly more snow than we have — is that snowmobilers last week came upon quite a natural deer slaughterhouse in the woods, with blood and body parts from several deer concentrated in a small area. Supposedly, game wardens were called to the scene and one was so appalled at the carnage that he opined there should be a bounty on coyotes. I hesitate to report such a story, but it came from a credible source I would not question, and even if I could get through to the wardens who visited the kill site, they would never admit to advocating a bounty. Such a comment would create a brushfire for superiors to extinguish, and they would not be happy. Furthermore, it is highly unlikely I’d ever get a chance to talk directly to the officers who responded to the call. Instead, I’d have to go through a state Office of Executive Affairs spokesperson, who would make a few calls, call me back and likely either
tell me the report could not be substantiated or confirm there was a deer-kill investigated without providing the officers’ names, definitely no spontaneous remarks made on the scene.

Fact is that there are many politically correct anti-hunters in this state who would not appreciate seeing such an “ignorant” comment from law enforcement in the paper, and they would scream bloody murder if such an irresponsible, inappropriate, hysterical call for bounties had been publicized. Thus the OEA filter was established several years ago to homogenize news, make life easy for state officials and miserable for scribes worth their salt.

All I can say is: take it for what it’s worth. You be the judge. And be certain that if, over the next few weeks, you decide to explore a forested southern exposure where deer typically yard, you will likely find similar, ugly, crimson horror shows. Yes indeed, balance of nature at its finest. The question is: Who keeps the coyote population in check?

The answer is few. Very few.

Seems I just can’t abandon the topic of oak trees, red and white, how to differentiate.

This week I will share comments from a wildlife biologist, an arborist and my own brother-in-law, with whom I quite spontaneously broached the subject on the phone Wednesday morning. He, the owner of a large, paradisiacal retirement spread in southern Maine, has successfully planted many white oaks on his property, acquiring a wealth of knowledge along the way. When told I had pilloried my ignorance for a public flogging because I figured to be no less informed than most hunters trying to quickly identify red and white oaks by sight, he was in total agreement. “It’s true,” he said. “I knew very little before I decided to introduce white oaks to my property and studied them.”

The man is now an authority, having planted hundreds of Eastern White, Swamp White and Chestnut oaks on a property that contained only reds when he bought it some four decades ago. A Johnny Appleseed of sorts, he took it upon himself to gather acorns from tall, straight, extraordinary white oaks on the UMass-Dartmouth campus where he taught for many years, the Providence, R.I., private school where he sent his daughters, and several spots along the route from southeast Massachusetts to Maine. One such location, off Route 146 in Rhode Island, held many ancient Chestnut Oaks whose offspring are now doing just fine, thank you, on his Maine farm. As we chatted Wednesday, he said he now has more than 100 white-oak sprouts growing in his cellar, soon to be transplanted into separate cups for future planting.

He learned by trial and error how to successfully grow the seedlings in his woods. He started by concealing the infant oaks among natural seedlings and saplings, which protected them from browsing deer until they reached a height at which he could remove the closest protectors. In the process, he learned a more important trick to combat rodent destruction. Germinated acorns sprout two shoots, one that points to the sky, another a taproot that reaches in the opposite direction. He found that a planted acorn stays remarkably intact long after the sprouts grow, and that the pungent nut attracts rodents that dig it up and eat it in the spring. “They’re quite efficient and troublesome,” he said. “I found that they’d eat those acorns within a week or so of planting, amazing how fast they’d find them and wipe them out.” The problem required creativity. During the indoor transplanting process from a large container holding many sprouts into small individual cups, he now carefully twists the acorn, breaks the tubular taproot and sprout free, pulls it gently through the nut and buries it in the cup. There, the tiny plant continues to grow until planted in the spring. A friend surmised the experiment wouldn’t work. He was wrong. Ten or 12 years later, the small trees started bearing fruit. Wildlife today gravitates to the young white-oak groves. The traffic will undoubtedly increase as the trees mature.

As for the arborist, well, he wrote to inform me that there are only two species of oaks in our woods, red and white. He was responding to my warning that Chestnut Oaks could create confusion when trying to find white oaks because they both had rounded leaves. “The Chestnut Oak is a white oak,” he wrote, “along with the Eastern White Oak, the Swamp White Oak and maybe the Burr Oak, which is, in my opinion, rare here.“White-oak acorns are very different: Eastern has a shallow cup and the acorn is often green, Swamp has a deep, shaggy cup, Burr has a deep, very shaggy cup, and Chestnut has a slender deep acorn and cup. The bark of the two white oaks is similar whitish and furrowed or blocked. The bark of the Burr and Chestnut oaks is rugged thick furrows. Leaves of Swamp and Chestnut oaks are very similar.”

On to our wildlife biologist, an old friend and former state Deer Project Leader I always look forward to hearing from. He wrote to shed light on previous feedback from a reader who said he knew the difference between red and white oaks but found the whites less apt to bear fruit, speculating that this perceived scarcity of acorns could be related to their favored status among foragers. The biologist didn’t disagree that white-oak acorns are favored by animals in the fall but said the observer was ignoring a key factor.

“One important difference between red- and white-oak acorns is when they germinate,” he wrote. “White-oak acorns germinate the fall they drop. Red-oak acorns over-winter and germinate in the spring. So, while white oaks have less tannin and are more palatable, they disappear quickly. Red oaks are valuable to wildlife coming out of winter. In our bear study, in springs following a good red-oak acorn crop, about 25 percent or more of the bears’ diet was acorns after they left their dens. Following a poor acorn year, it was almost 100 percent skunk cabbage. Deer, turkeys and all the other critters also eat those over-wintered red-oak acorns in the spring. Red oaks are by far more common in our New England forests than whites, though in the valley it will vary from wood lot to wood lot.”

So, there you have it: more interesting winter fodder to chew on. God, what did I get myself into, anyway? Actually, give me more, a great cabin-fever antidote. Remember, Native Americans once ground the sweet white-oak nuts into meal and flour for gruel and bread. Now this discussion of red and white oaks is sustaining me through a cold, snowy winter.

Although it may be difficult to believe, spring is near for optimistic spirits. Count me among them. Why dwell on the negative, which then only gets worse? I’d much rather focus on the positive.

Ooooops! Better go. Gotta get in the last round of shoveling before work.

Wow! Quite a reaction to last week’s piece about my difficulties identifying by sight the different oaks in our forest.

Criticism, advice and gracious hands-on offers to teach me proper recognition of red, white and chestnut oaks came my way in rapid fashion. The feedback came from hunters and gatherers, hikers and foresters, ladies and men. Clearly, it’s high time I put this confusion behind me. Oh my, look what I got myself into by pillorying my ignorance on the public square.

Oh well, like the old trapper at Punkin’ Hollow used to say: “There’s more than one way to skin a cat,” a lesson I learned long ago and have learned to lived by. And the fact is that I already know more than I did a week ago about oak trees, and I never left my toasty study, flames dancing upward like snakes’ tongues in the Rumford fireplace. Ah, praise the Internet, despite the winter layer of fat this type of surfing can build. But, hey, don’t animals need fat to survive winter? Why should we, animals too, be any different?

But wait. Enough self-deprecation. It’s not like I’m totally clueless about the trees in our forest. Actually, I’m not bad at picking out the basic species as I traipse through the woods, trees like oak, beech, ash, maple, hickory, cherry, walnut, butternut, apple and hemlock. There are many other trees, bushes and plants I recognize, but I am by no means a botanist or dendrologist. In fact, I have never taken a course focused on the study of trees and plants. Or, maybe I did and have forgotten. I hated science; too much memorization. But who says you need a formal classroom to learn anything? Myself, I’ve just poked around over the years and picked things up in my travels, including information about trees and plants related to my favorite woodland pursuits. So I guess you could say I know enough to get by, and have done just that for decades, making exciting new discoveries along the way; likely many more before I check out.

I guess I’m no different than most hunters and woodsmen who patrol the forest for work or play. Remember, it was just such a man, a hunter and cordwood merchant no less, who taught me to misidentify white oaks by their bark’s deep grooves and prominent ridges. That was a bogus identification key, one I bared for all to see last week. Several readers were quick to point out the error, scolding that the deeply grooved bark, dark in color, belongs to red (and chestnut) oaks, not whites, which display smoother, scalier bark, whitish-gray in color. Thanks. I needed that. Forever enlightened. On to nature’s next riddle.

My mistaken bark-identification key was “learned” in the past five years, and I accepted it without delving deeper because I trusted the teacher. Prior to that woodland “lesson,” the white-oak identifier I most often used when inspecting a pawed-up feeding area was round, stubby acorns, which I have even tasted for sweetness to confirm my amateur assessment. I have also sampled red-oak acorns, their tannins producing a bitter taste that I suppose you could ignore if really hungry. A Heath forester I respect wrote to confirm that white acorns do indeed tend to be stubbier than reds, especially at the cap. Of course, Internet photos and “Peterson’s Guide to Trees” then cast doubt by showing some elongated white-oak nuts as well.

So it appears that the safest way to identify white oaks is by their leaves. Red-oak leaves are long and pointy; whites are similarly structured but rounded. Then arises another problem, that of chestnut oaks, which have rounded leaves similar to their white cousins. The difference between those two oak species lies in the bark. Judging from Internet photos I viewed, the chestnut oak’s bark has more prominent ridges and deeper grooves than the red. So, if the grooves are very deep, the leaves rounded, the ridges like the widest of all corduroys, you’re dealing with chestnut oaks, said to produce acorns favored by deer over those of red oaks.

Enough!

Off to a couple of interesting observations that appeared among the many responses to my white/red oak dilemma. One, from a South Deerfield chum who spends a lot of time poking around in the woods, said he knew a white oak by sight and has discovered they’re less likely to bear acorns
for some reason; either that, he speculated, or foraging critters snap them up as soon as they hit the ground, maybe even before. Another more comical remark came from a woman who hunts salubrious wild foods and has been searching for white-oak acorns near her hill-town home. She said that, although she has thus far been unable to find white oaks near her property, she did find a beautiful, mature white oak at Arms Cemetery in Shelburne Falls, a prolific acorn producer, at that.

“But I’m not eating those acorns,” she wrote, for obvious reasons.

Well, chubby, gray, burial-ground squirrels are not so fussy and reap the benefits.

A six-foot snow bank at a dead end marked the beginning of our quarter-mile trek through deep, fluffy, toe-dragging snow. We skirted the pile and followed a convenient foot-wide deer path down the wooded trail into a peaceful hollow before ascending to the crest of a gentle hill long ago cleared by and named after the man who built the center-chimney Cape standing frozen in antiquity there.

Because I don’t like to pinpoint important historic sites, let me just say this tranquil hillock rests somewhere in our western Franklin hills, said by an astute 90-year-old friend to be “honeycombed with interesting places and important people.” He knows. An auctioneer and antiques dealer, the man furnished many a country getaway with Queen Anne tables, Chippendale chests, Hepplewhite stands and Federal portraits, all handsome pieces of Americana with fascinating tales to tell. Our destination on this day was such a place kept by such people, transplants all, the best and brightest. Without these preservationists, all that would likely remain today would be an overgrown, stone-clad depression with many more questions than answers; one of too many buried under the canopy of historic landscapes. This one was spared the indignity.

But that’s it for clues. No more. I have learned my lesson. Once, when writing about woods dear to me, I assumed my intentionally vague references would help only a few harmless natives. I later discovered that a bright, misguided transplant from faraway had deciphered the location. I was surprised, even impressed, also reminded that even a little information can be too much. It won’t happen again. Cellar holes, cemeteries and Native paths are worthy of concealment from thieves, snoops and busy-bodies. Why contribute to the degradation of archaeological sites by giving away location? Not me. Maybe I’m selfish, or judicious. Call it what you may. I’m not budging.

Although I was revisiting this newfound treasure trove of local history to retrieve an essay about the dwelling and its stewards — and to examine a large cellar chamber inside the 10-foot-square stone base of the chimney — I also wanted to check the deer sign, which had been plentiful a week earlier during a walk through the property with a genial guide and caretaker. The woman knew from my prose that I loved, even worshipped, upland hardwood forests, and she had such a place to share, one harboring a 300-year-old oak tree that five men could not get their arms around. There are few oaks like it left in our Franklin hills, and even this one, broad and burly, has seen better days.

Interestingly, near that giant oak lay what was left of a small 6-point buck, likely killed and not found during the most recent deer season. Our dogs, three of them, quickly found the skeletal remains left by coyotes. My Springers returned with jawbones as her Aussie Shepherd proudly paraded the small rack and skull plate. My guide, joy in her gait, love of nature oozing through her pores, lugged those antlers for the remainder of our walk and hung them on a peg at home. A trophy of sorts.

Having bemoaned the scarcity of deer sign in woods I knew well during the season, I was surprised by what I had seen on my first visit to this unfamiliar forest. Many deer runs traversed the open hardwoods, and pawed-up foraging patches were prevalent through the oaks. There seemed to be no shortage of deer or turkeys on this wooded slice of upland paradise, forest in the 40- to 60-year range, beautiful open hardwoods with a few ancient behemoths mixed in, their massive limbs flexing their biceps before reaching to the high heavens.

I was curious to see what kind of deer activity we’d find on my second visit, a few days after our first big storm dropped a new layer of snow. Well, it was impressive, deer and turkey sign everywhere, focused primarily on plentiful acorns buried deep on the forest floor, especially under the muscle-bound oaks bordering the ancient road. The humbling trip reminded me once again that I must better learn to quickly and positively identify white oaks, which are less plentiful in our woods than reds but more important to wildlife. I was taught to identify white oaks by their deeply grooved bark, with more prominent ridges than their red cousins. A woodsman who makes his living selling cordwood taught me that distinguishing characteristic, and I accepted it. Another way to distinguish between red and white oaks is the acorns they produce. White oaks grow rounder, stubbier acorns than reds, and the white-oak meat is sweet and succulent. At least that’s what I’ve been told.

I now have reason to question my identification keys. When I pointed out a large roadside white oak near the secluded dwelling we visited, my guide corrected me, saying she had studied its leaves and they were sharply pointed, not rounded white-oak leaves. Hmmmm? Maybe large, old red oaks also have deeply-grooved bark. Can’t say for sure. Hopefully someone will chime in to straighten me out. Maybe it varies. Perhaps I have been misled. I do know that if there are no white oaks available, then deer and turkeys will eat other acorns. But, still, deer and bears, and probably turkeys and squirrels, prefer the sweeter meat of white oaks, and so did the Natives who gathered them for protein-rich sustenance.

I admit I can be lazy when given an excuse. Over the years as I’ve walked the woods looking for deer sign, passing hundreds of oaks along the way, some trees are pawed-up underneath, many are not, and I have assumed without closer inspection that the most aggressively pawed-up stands contain white oaks. When I investigate further, I have often found stubby acorns, even occasionally bite into them to sample their sweetness. It may be time to dig deeper, hone my identification skills to provide one more edge in putting it all together. Google is of little help.

Are not mysteries and riddles intrinsic forest beauties, even in familiar woods, gun or none, one puzzle today, another tomorrow, often related, sometimes not? To me it’s true. And these mysteries of the wild will continue to lure me back, my mangled left knee and flimsy right ankle willing.

Yes, there’s always something new to ponder in the woods, be it tight streamside stonework, a collapsed cellar hole, kindred spirits, or one of nature’s infinite mysteries, all present to make our cognitive wheels scream, our imagination purr.

Last week’s “What deer?” column drew reader comments, some written, another phoned, all throwing in their two-cents’ worth about the status of our Franklin County deer herd. Not one painted a rosy picture.

The freshest response came by cell phone Tuesday evening around 5. It was Phil Phillips, an old chum from my hometown of South Deerfield. Phillips, his father, brothers and many Phillipses before them have hunted Franklin County for many generations, eyes and ears in the local woods, fields and streams. So his observations are as worthy of attention as anyone’s. He’s passed 60, has lived here all his life and thus has an extended sample period on which to base his opinions; what I would call a credible source, no ax to grind.

Anyway, the incident Phillips wanted to share involved a coyote, a good-sized fawn and a Bernardston golf outing. He wasn’t sure of the date but guessed it was late July or early August, so the fawn was a couple of months old, by that age presumably capable of fleeing danger. The scene Phillips and his partner witnessed left a lasting impression. He only witnessed a brief segment of the chase and actually played an intentional role favorable to the prey, but in his opinion, the young, stressed deer was dead meat.

The scene unfolded in broad daylight on a fairway that skirts the driveway leading to Bella Notte, a hilltop restaurant overlooking Crumpin-Fox Club. Phillips and his partner had teed off and were headed down the fairway in a cart when they noticed a fleeing deer exit the woods and run straight down Broadway with fear written all over it. The animal passed the cart and Phillips knew from the way it was acting that it was being pursued. Curious, he started scanning the woods line and, sure enough, spotted a single coyote running along the edge. The predator tried several times to dart out across the fairway but Phillips did his best to stay between it and its intended path, giving the deer a chance to get away. The brazen coyote was determined, truing several times to beat Phillips to the pass, but Phillips was able to seal off its path temporarily. Finally, the coyote tired of challenging the cart, looped across the road and likely circled back to pick up the deer’s trail.

“That deer had spots but it wasn’t tiny and I would have thought it was big enough to get away,” Phillips said, “but I don’t believe that deer made it. Just a hunch, but it looked disoriented and tired and worn out. I’ve thought about it often and had to call after reading your piece. After all these years of doe permits and cutbacks, you’d think the herd would be getting bigger but it seems to be going the other way. Coyotes must be a factor.”

Phillips is not alone in this opinion. Conventional wisdom among our most experienced woodsmen, ones who can compare what they see now in their favorite haunts to what they were seeing 40 to 70 years ago, don’t hesitate to opine a deer decline. Question what’s left of our dairy farmers — a dying breed that cuts the hay, plants the corn, picks the fruit and harrows the fields — and they’ll sing a similar tune. Meanwhile, the state’s deer-management team assured us that our local deer herd has never been healthier. So how does a simple pedestrian reconcile such a discrepancy of opinion? Confusing, to say the least; to some, downright annoying.

A couple of other respondents, both e-mailers, had interesting observations to share. One was from Conway, the other an Ashfield farmer, both deer hunters with opinions.

First the logger, who knew and had hunted the woods surrounding a secluded trail I elusively described in last week’s column. He wrote: “I would concur with your article about herd count and deer management here in Massachusetts. Living and hunting in Conway since the mid-70s and seeing where we are today doesn’t even come close to where we were then. At that time I worked as a logger and remember as clear as it was yesterday one cold January morning in 1980, snow on the ground a month after the season, coming across a herd of 14 deer in the area you spoke of. They pretty much stood and watched as the skidder went by, not threatened whatsoever. This was not an uncommon sight here in Conway then. Come this time of year, you could not drive at night without seeing deer standing in the road looking for salt and whatever else they could find. It was not uncommon to see 10 or 12 deer throughout the hunting week, maybe does or ones you couldn’t get a shot at. Today, that is not the case, and it is quite a surprise when you do see a deer any time of year. With the report of fewer hunters in the woods, one would think that the numbers would go the other way, but that does not seem the case. Not sure what the answer is. Hopefully there is someone out there smarter than those of us out in the woods.”

This man isn’t sure why deer seem to be scarcer these days, but he speculated that coyotes and bears were contributing to fawn mortality. Many armchair biologists suspect the same, and now apparently there are some scholarly reports citing spring bear predation of fawns. Perhaps more research is needed.

As for the Ashfield man who chimed in, he no longer farms but does hunt his acreage alongside friends who’ve hunted together for many years. He was recently dismayed after completing his second straight deer season with zero kills by his party, and he thinks he understands why.

“Our crew consists of three to six hunters on different days and we have hunted the same area of Ashfield for 25 years,” he wrote. “Up until two years ago, we would take three to five deer a year. I have a landowner’s doe permit because I grew up here on a dairy farm that is no longer in business. … I could go on about what MassWildlife is doing and saying, but I have a little different theory about what’s going on. I call it the Vermont theory. The last two does I took weighed 140 pounds (2007) and 150 pounds (2008). The Gould’s Sugarhouse biologist estimated the second one at 11½ years old. I had noticed then that the groups of deer had very few fawns with them. Everyone says natural predators are the reason but they’ve been around for years and the deer herd was still good. Between 1992 and 2007, hunting was as good as it gets around here. During those years, other than my landowner’s permit, I think our group might have received two doe permits. Because the herd has been mismanaged, there are too many old does that don’t carry fawns. From what I have researched about this situation, these older does will dominate areas, even chase bucks away. By the way, we have not even seen a buck during hunting season for two years. It appears to me that MassWildlife has ruined our deer herd in some areas of WMass by duplicating what happened in Vermont with our herd.”

Remember, this is the observation of a man familiar with animals, having been raised on a centuries-old dairy farm. I have never before heard this menopausal-doe theory but find it interesting after personally witnessing some huge does dragged out of the woods in recent years. It never really occurred to me that these older females were no longer reproductive, but I suppose it could be the case. I’ll have to look into it further. Maybe someone will chime in. I too have seen far fewer “skipper” tracks in the snow in recent years, a complaint I have heard echoed by many hunters bemoaning spring coyote predation.

Maybe there’s more to it than that. Stay tuned.

What to make of the 2010 deer season? That’s the question that’s been bugging me for the past few weeks. Not a scientific analysis. Just trying to make sense of observations I am not academically trained to interpret.

A deer expert I am not. Far from it, in fact. The only kind of field research I know is hunting familiar territory, talking to other hunters doing the same and gathering observations and opinions, always trying to separate the wheat from the chaff, fact from fiction, seldom easy. I only know what my eyes and trusted sources tell me. No more. No less. We all know what we’ve seen and how it compares to other years in the same areas. But who knows which of our conclusions are valid or invalid? So let me just lay it out there? You be the judge.

The impetus for this piece was an interesting night spent at an old Greenfield farm Saturday in the company of deer hunters eager to throw in their two cents worth. We were brewing and sampling tasty ales, not by any stretch of the imagination getting carried away, in a cozy, wood-heated barn chamber. Four or five of the fellas had hunted together and taken a doe the previous day, the final day of blackpowder; another young man had killed two bucks, one a handsome Shelburne 8-pointer. All the men were more than willing to chat about deer season and their impressions of the local whitetail population, which doesn’t seem to be improving despite draconian herd-building measures during the past decade. Our lively little discussion made it clear that I’m not the only one who’s wondering why, after years of conservative antlerless-permit allotments here, the deer population doesn’t appear to be growing. In fact, it seems there are fewer deer in the woods now than 10 years ago. Of course, I may be wrong. Perhaps everyone in the room that night was sadly mistaken. I don’t know. Not a one of us holds a wildlife-management degree, just years of patrolling the same woods, reading the same sign, observing.

Before we continue, I admit I did little deer hunting this year. A Dec. 2 family tragedy set me back and I never really got back into the swing of things. That doesn’t mean I ever totally ignored my favorite haunts, because I did take several challenging 4-wheel-drive reconnaissance missions searching for promising sign in the snow where experience told me I should find it. Guess what? It wasn’t there. As for actual hunting, I got out the first two days and, in perhaps seven hours in the woods, saw six deer, two of them bucks, one of which I shot at. So who am I to complain? There were indeed deer where I hunted. Not a lot, but enough to make sitting in a reliable stand worthwhile. In other woods where I’ve hunted longer and have several established stands that have produced consistent deer sightings, I had trouble cutting a track on a forest floor littered with nutty feed, high in protein. Yeah, I know the experts will say there was too much feed in the woods, thus the deer could have been anywhere. And maybe they’re right. All I can say is that what I found was unusual. Not long ago, when acorns, beechnuts and wild grapes were everywhere in those same woods, deer sign was widespread, including many frequently traveled runs, worn deep and wide into the snow, crossing the forest trails. All I saw this year was a lonely track here and there, nothing to spring a man out of bed in the wee hours and put him in the woods with daybreak enthusiasm in his soul.

My first hint of the current sad state of western Franklin County deer hunting came toward the end of shotgun season’s first week. A friend with more than 50 years experience called bemoaning the disappearance of deer in Conway woods we had hunted many times together. He said he’d been through the smallish parcel several times and there were no deer. None. Pointless to return.

I asked about the woods across the road, and the ridge to south, across the stream? Any shooting there?

A little the first couple of days. Nothing to get excited about.

Hmmmmmm? Where could they have gone? There are always deer there.

True, but not this year.

Like many local veteran deer hunters, my friend attributes our deer decline to coyote predation of spring fawns. This may or may not be true but you can bet that if it is, state wildlife biologists will be the last to admit it. The experts claim coyotes have a negligible impact on our deer population. Amateur woodsmen disagree. The times they have a changed.

Into blackpowder season, my friend gave me another ring. He’d been everywhere, found nothing enticing, was discouraged. Did I feel like accompanying him to the oaks by the pond atop Catamount to see what was happening up there? His uncle’s friend told him the oaks were all pawed up. Always up for a woodland ramble, I drove and we scouted through the oaks, guns in hand, never cutting a track, not even a coyote or squirrel. Perplexed, we departed and took a roundabout route west to another spot on the mountain, parking near a gate across the trail leading to the famous old schoolhouse. We walked the trail a mile or more through an upland oak forest, classic deer country, many acorns underfoot, and cut one track in snow that had been down for three or four days. One freakin’ track! A small one at that. Befuddling.

Puzzled, I suggested we take a ride to the big woods of Conway, where I wanted to drive three miles up a treacherous mountain trail to what I call “The Beechnuts,” if we could make it. Well, we were able to brave the ice and again found one uninspiring track crossing the ancient trail named after a wild, freathered barnyard pest. Imagine that! One lousy deer track in three- or four-day-old snow. I could not believe it. The deer were definitely not there, and they were not crossing a similar trail maybe three miles south, one I had monitored two or three times that week and been astonished by the lack of sign.

My friend phoned me again a day or two later. He had more news, had spoken to an old hunting buddy we often hunted with in the past. Our mutual friend told of a 20-man party he had joined toward the end of shotgun season, led by a notorious gang that has overpowered the same woods for decades. His tale was not one of success. The only reason they had increased the party to such extreme numbers was a previous lack of success moving deer. Well, on this day with their eager army rarin’ to go, it turned out they had too many bodies, so they split up and hunted adjacent parcels, 10 on each side of the road. Twenty experienced hunters with many notches in their belts pushed woods they knew well and no one saw so much as a flag. Not even a distant flash. They couldn’t believe it. Although I am aware that this crew’s hunting routine probably toes the line of illegality, we all know it happens and is nearly impossible to stop. Still, some will say it’s inappropriate for me to mention such activity in print. I disagree, am only using it to support my contention that deer were scarce locally.

By the time all the numbers are in statewide, it is likely we’ll be looking at a 2010 all-weapon harvest in the neighborhood of last year’s, which was down a bit from 2008. Just this week an inadequate MassWildlife press release reported incomplete preliminary archery and shotgun harvests of 3,644 and 4,435, the former a record, the latter a continuation of a downward trend. Who knows how productive the blackpowder season was? Probably around 2,000. But even that harvest has trended downward recently. And remember, state harvest numbers over the past decade have been skewed heavily eastward, reflecting little about our local situation. A significant majority of the deer killed in this state today are taken from Worcester County east, in the suburbs, where the woods are small and young and easy to hunt, especially for bowhunters set up behind shopping plazas and residential neighborhoods, not to mention shotgun-toting groups hunting in unison. The bigger woods of western Mass. are no longer attractive to most contemporary deer hunters, too difficult.

Yep, there’s no denying times have changed, and not for the better here in traditional deer country, where dairy farms and habitats conducive to healthy, burgeoning deer populations have gone the way of the stoneware churn. Whether it gets better or worse is anyone’s guess. But it’ll be interesting to watch, and listen to the professorial excuses.