Jul
18
2009

Patten Squire

by Gary Sanderson

What I remember most about the late Ellsworth Barnard was the day I met him and wife Mary at their forested cabin in Shelburne’s Patten District, five miles up the hill from my Greenfield Meadows home. It was back in the late 1990s, probably 1998, which would have made him 90 or 91.

I had heard about and purchased his then recent tribute to High Ledges, ”In a Wild Place,” then read it, paying particular attention to the essay about the American chestnut, its demise and the many young chestnut trees Barnard was nurturing near his idyllic West County retreat. Intrigued, I found his number in the phone book, gave him a ring and asked if it would be possible to meet him, that I wanted to see his chestnut trees and have him autograph my book. Vaguely familiar with this column, he recognized my name, knew my farmhouse and invited me up.

”Drive to the sign that says ‘No Motorized Vehicles Beyond This Point,’ and ignore it,” he instructed. ”Drive right in and you’ll arrive at my cabin in a half-mile or so. I’d like to meet you.”

In no more than an hour, I was there, snuggled up to the 4WD vehicle parked near his cabin overlooking the Deerfield River, Shelburne Falls and the Berkshire Hills, a breathtaking view, especially for someone who’s patrolled the western Franklin County hilltowns for decades.

I went to the door, knocked and was greeted by Mary Barnard, a distinguished lady, hair tightly tied back in a bird’s nest.

”Come in,” she said. ”Dutch is in the kitchen.” At least my memory tells me it was the kitchen where we sat and talked; could have been a combination kitchen/dining room, though; casual, rustic, modest furnishings, fieldstone fireplace, spectacular view to the south and west.

We sat and talked for about 15 minutes before going outside to inspect the chestnut grove. As I recall, there were maybe a dozen trees about the width of my travel mug, maybe a bit wider. As he spoke about his little forestry project, you could feel Barnard’s affection for the chestnut trees. But he was a realist. He knew they would not survive.

”They’ll get a little bigger, look perfectly healthy, then dry up and die overnight,” he lamented. ”It’s a tragedy. I keep thinking that, with time, they’ll build a resistance to the blight and make a comeback. I will not be here to witness it.”

We chatted for a little while longer before I bid him adieu and retraced my path home, never again to lay eyes on him. I did catch his January 2004 obituary, age 96, and thought back to our visit. I remembered him as a gentle, soft-spoken, simple man; professorial of tongue and appearance; fit but bent and frail from age.

I now feel as though I know him better, having recently finished his four-volume memoir, ”In Sunshine and in Shadow,” written in retirement between 1985-91. He crafts nearly 1,100 pages to chronicle his life, starting with his Patten Hill boyhood on Barnard Farm, near High Ledges, where he acquired his love of nature centered on birds and wildflowers, then moving to his education and the turbulent teaching career that followed. A fiercely independent English prof, Barnard’s loyalty was to his students, not administrators, and he paid a price for it, bouncing from institution to institution, starting and ending at UMass/Amherst.

His autobiographical journey articulates his fascinating political evolution from a dyed-in-the-wool, rural New England Republican and F.D.R. foe to a left-wing radical, enemy of the military-industrial complex that pollutes the precious air and water, hungers for war, and abuses labor. I guess that’s what reading, reflection and worldwide life experience will do to a pensive, objective human mind, one that’s willing to listen and explore.

I must admit I came away from the memoirs wishing Mr. Barnard, my neighbor in many ways, was still alive. I would have enjoyed another visit, knowing what I now know. His was a fascinating tale, one worth reading on many levels. The voice is that of a Franklin County hilltown Yankee who had developed a profound philosophical approach to life and living.

Undoubtedly, those alive who knew Dutch Barnard intimately still miss him because of what he represented — a dying breed in these troubling times of shallow Dittohead bores and contrived profiteer wars.

posted in Local history | No Comments

Jul
18
2009

Stink Bait

by Gary Sanderson

By now, the stink bait must be getting pretty ripe, sun-baked in a covered, five-gallon, galvanized pail with a bail handle — what we used to call garbage cans back in the day.
If you’re confused, relax, you just aren’t familiar with catfishermen and the bait they use. Aficionados brew special bait for a catfish derby, the biggest and best of which is scheduled for this weekend, “any where on the Connecticut River and its tributaries.”
We’re talking about the Holyoke American Legion Post 351 derby, 29th annual, the granddaddy of them all, the one the best and brightest anxiously await,
affable Senior Advisor Don Partyka at the helm, throwing in his two-cents’ worth from the sidelines, early and often, all in good fun, of course. Yes sir, the “Channel Cat” is quite the boy, one of the best, an all-time jawboner, probably Hall of Fame material.
Someone ought to buy him a Derby hat for the occasion. Maybe I will. A formal one.
Myself, I have no first-hand catfishing experience. No, I have always been on the periphery, but I do vaguely recall an old Pine Nook trapper, a good one at that, brewing catfish bait from carcasses and entrails; a pungent mix that would gag you, eyes
watering, out by his backyard clothesline. Open that garbage pail and be prepared to burn off your nostril hairs, one powerful stink. I’ve smelt it and could never imagine working with the stuff, transferring it to some sort of bait can or mayonnaise jar, and then
actually handling it to bait the hook. I guess old Trapper Teddy employed rubber gloves, which solved one problem, that of odor and bacteria on his hands, but who would want to deal with the stench every time they opened the container along the river’s bank? Phew! Maybe Trapper Teddy brought nose plugs to address the issue. All I can say is: Deep-fried catfish must be delicious, given what a man has to go through to catch them; off the bottom, of course, attracting them with a stench that would curl your hair and turn your tummy.
Trapper Ted used to say “the riper, the better” when it came to catfishing. I believed him. He knew what he was doing, whether running a ridge, chasing through swamps, or working a trap-line, upland or down. They don’t make any like him anymore; a
throwback from way back when I knew him; more than capable of making ends meet.
Anyway, Trapper Teddy’s long gone by now, probably resting at Pine Nook Cemetery, a good thing for competitors at this weekend’s derby. He would have been a tough man to deal with at such a gig. Having grown up on a large dairy farm bordered on the east
by the Connecticut River, Teddy learned to fish for catfish on lantern-lit nights, convivial occasions, of course. In fact, maybe the liquid refreshments helped him cope with the unpleasant odor accompanying his leisure activity; probably stimulated conversation,
too; kinda Huck Finn-Tom Sawyer stuff, plenty of ribbing, practical joking and horsing around away from the watchful eye of the, ah, authorities. Which is not to suggest that’s what happens today, in this more refined, homogenized culture. Uh-uh. We’re talking
about a little more law and order nowadays. No, a lot more; increased enforcement, too. Rules and regs. Gotta have ’em. Soon they’ll probably have surveillance cameras watching from the heavens, if they’re not already up there spying, Big Brother style. My
GPS unit says they’re already there, observing from the heavens. But let’s not digress. Some people welcome that kind of stuff, sing heartfelt praise. So, with that … back to the 29th annual Catfish Derby, Don’s Derby.

The good thing is that with Trapper Ted out of the picture, everyone will have a fair shot. But be advised that the old guy will be looking over the shoulder of anyone fishing his stretch of the Connecticut, and he’s not bashful; never was, always more than willing to
tell anyone who’s listening that they’re a stupid SOB who doesn’t have a clue. I heard it said hundreds of times, to me and many others.
It was no joke. Teddy meant every word he said. Spared no one.

posted in Columns | No Comments

Jul
18
2009

A Better Way?

by Gary Sanderson

A large, plump crescent moon slumped lazily on end just above the Shelburne hills, leaning slightly northward like a giant overripe cantaloupe wedge in the hot, hazy western sky as I drove home from work late Tuesday night. I’m not sure whether its wry grin, mellow orange hue or both got my nostalgic juices flowing, but something stimulated thought about a phone call I had taken a day or two earlier, then immediately transported me back to an untethered youth in that village first called Bloody Brook, then South Deerfield, then, in the Polish-spiced vernacular, Sowdeeeerfeel — the Onion Town, poor sister of The (haughty) Street.

Isn’t it odd how a force of nature like that sultry summer moon can in an instant carry you back a generation and spin your imaginative gears like the chime wheel on a noontime tall clock?

It wasn’t the reported ”mountain goats” that sent me off reminiscing. No, not at all. That was just the updraft that lifted me high above my native town to the North Sugarloaf ridge where they have been seen of late, poking in and out of the ridgeline vegetation above the rusty sandstone cliffs, presumably feeding. A longtime friend and former lightning-rod town official was my source. He said he was sick of the big-cat yarns and had one stitched of a similar thread to share.

It seems he’s been using backyard binoculars to observe the pair of white wayward goats patrolling the North Sugarloaf spine since Memorial Day, but has been reluctant to talk about it for fear of the suspicions that could spread like wildfire in a small town like his. When he first noticed them more than a month ago, he picked up visual white movement that immediately piqued his interest. After all, he’d lived in town all his life and never seen anything like it: white quadrupeds throughout the day between the cliffs and the shelf cave we often visited as prepubescents many years ago, more than we like to admit. Back then we had it good, free rein of a magical hardwood ridge that has apparently become quite public in recent years, bikers and hikers galore working the trails that begin off Hillside Road.

I was thinking back to those days of boyhood bliss and found it sad that my youthful Huckleberry Finn haunts will never be the same. They weren’t there for my boys, and they won’t be for my precious grandson, Jordan, with his inquisitive grey-blue eyes, joyful gait, curiosity oozing from his pores. Now that special place has been discovered by adults, who bring with them the law-and-order crowd bent on eliminating ”mischief.” Today, such authority figures would surely pursue free-roaming boys of Mark Twain fabric to teach them young that there are rules to be followed, and enforced. Possession of things like matches, cigarettes and fireworks, hunting or jack knives, girlie mags and BB guns are today taboo, certainly punishable by, at the very least, stifling probationary scrutiny aimed toward the path to conformity.

Such enforcers were of a different ilk in my day, when they were the kid next door’s dad, probably veterans of either the European or Pacific theaters, definitely clear-headed on the difference between kid’s stuff and crime. Back then you could carry a pocket knife that wasn’t a deadly weapon, carve initials into a tree that weren’t interpreted as criminal ”tagging,” and step out of a storm and into an abandoned shed or barn without being charged for trespassing. You could even build a spacious fort in a dense white-pine grove without facing charges for destruction of personal property. Yes indeed, times have changed, and not necessarily for the better. But let’s not digress. It’s goats we’re talking about, isn’t it; white goats on the North Sugarloaf ridge? Oh yeah, now it’s coming back to me.

Whew!

It only took one phone call to a dear old friend to confirm the Sugarloaf goats’ presence. Praise the wonders of cell phones when you know the source you’re hunting is at work, probably somewhere deep in the Whately Glen reservation. He’s a part-time police officer, has been for many years, and I knew he’d have information. Fact was he hadn’t heard a word about goats this year, but did remember reports from last summer, so they’ve been around for a while. He had no idea where they came from. Maybe wild by now. Possibly escaped from the experimental UMass farm on River Road. Maybe from the private citizen who keeps penned goats off Hillside Road. Unlikely that either party would just set them loose to roam free, though. Could they survive the winter? He didn’t think so, but he didn’t rule it out.

Maybe someone who reads this will come forward and explain what’s happening on North Sugarloaf. Maybe the goats follow hikers and bikers around like pets. Maybe they run away. Who knows? Someone must.

Then again, maybe it’s the simple case of an owner who eats goat meat and prefers the free-range variety, kind of like Whole Foods, or the olden days when pigs were allowed to roam free in the woods around the Boston Township forts. There was enough wild food available then and now. If so, the beasts are probably happy to be free from barbed-wire containment on a beautiful ridge to roam, many nuts and berries, beautiful vista. I know. I enjoyed my boyhood freedom there. So did my pals. No supervision, no high-and-tight rules and regs. Just a band of free-range kids in the Mark Twain mold who grew up with the devil in their eyes, exuding personality, independence and, later, a healthy distrust of government — all undesirable qualities in today’s cookie-cutter America of decaying schools, expansive malls, standardized tests, and an alarming number of new spit-shined prisons.

A better way?

Uh-ah!

Not in my mind.

posted in South Deerfield | No Comments

Jul
18
2009

Old Hickory

by Gary Sanderson

A skunky summer it has been. Skunks everywhere. Night and day. Seriously.
I’ve been living with these pesky omnivores and their piercing odor for weeks. In fact, as I sit at the keyboard, the stench wafts from my fingers and red golf shirt, both victims of an otherwise uneventful walk with the dogs Tuesday night; out by the brook, after work, midnight approaching, soggy. Skunks seem to like rainy weather for some reason, perhaps the fresh green growth it stimulates, and so do Springer Spaniels, because scent is enhanced in still, damp air and Springers are all nose. Anyway, the stink on my fingers, washed many wasted times with detergent, came from the Tri-Tronics collars my animals wear. The shirt stench came from the box-stall scent-bomb Bessie slept in. The fresh dose of skunk juice on her head and neck filled the enclosed, muggy space, permeating my cotton shirt and probably my People’s Pint cap in a saturating second. When I returned to the scene Wednesday morning, a powerful smell remained, not eye-watering, but strong. So here I sit, alone, sporting skunk scent and bothering no one. I won’t drag it to work with me. Promise.
It all happened so fast on my nightly routine; went to the kennel, let Lily and Bessie out, and Bess sprinted to the alcove between barn and woodshed, then directly under the barn and into the cavernous cellar, interesting nooks and crannies everywhere. By the time I whistled her back — phew! — another direct hit to the face, pungent film covering her
green, plastic collar … second time this summer, Lily once. Bessie knew that skunk was there, trust me. It must have been tormenting her, kenneled in the back yard. And, oh, how she sprinted to get it before returning to roll and scrape her way across the wet
lawn, trying unsuccessfully to rid her face, head and neck of the spicy scent. It’s still there, although it doesn’t seem to bother her much. As for me, well, I could do without it but can live with it as well. Country living. She’ll carry it around for days. Then
it’ll disappear until the next dustup, a near certainty given what I’ve seen so far.
The fact is that my kenneled dogs have been watching backyard skunks for weeks now. The little critters seem to love it under my barn, in it or in the woodshed. I long ago moved my cat food to keep the varmints away. Come to think of it, wasn’t I just writ
ing about this issue last year at this time, after Bessie discovered her first white-striped puty cat with that hot, smelly wallop? Yeah, it was last year at this time.
I remember it well. That was when old Robert Remillard from Northfield called at 8 a.m., maybe earlier, with personal advice about washing away the spray of what he called “wood pussy,” because skunks are so similar to and get along so well with domestic
cats. Being a lover of the vernacular tongue, I enjoyed his description, one I had never before heard and will not forget. I still tease his grandson at work from time to time, calling him “Ole Wood Pussy.” He takes it in stride, just grins and keeps walking.
But back to that brief, sleepy-eyed, morning chat with Mr. Remillard, I remember how it transported me back to the ’60s and another “rural remedy” for skunk problems, this one from an old Hawley character. I only remember him only as Peewee. He had sold
a small, brookside, hardscrabble farmhouse off the road behind Berkshire East — then Thunder Mountain — to my Uncle Ralph. We were getting ready for winter, stacking wood in the shed off the kitchen, and Peewee was helping. Maybe he even
delivered the wood. I can’t rememeber. Those ’60s were tough on the memory, if you know what I mean, and I wasn’t spared … thank heavens.
When my uncle told Peewee skunks had been raiding the trash around the house and woodshed, the old-timer smiled like he expected it. He pointed to an old ax or maul handle leaning in the corner; said that’s why he left it handy, for skunks; hedgehogs, too; both easy targets. He walked over to the worn hickory weapon and picked it up like he owned it, then demon strated his homespun technique on a hemlock chopping block. The trick was to get the skunk comfort able in your presence, feed it if you had to, preferably
sardines, which smell strong and draw it. Then, as it eats, you’d just raise the long, narrow handle slowly and, with a flick of your wrist, plunk it down with a heavy thud, like a hammer, right between the eyes; knocks it dead as a doornail, never knows what hit it and doesn’t spray, either. But you had to know what you were doing. He impressed that upon us.
I must admit I’ve never tried it myself, and doubt my uncle ever did. In fact, I sometimes wonder if old Peewee ever did it, himself, the rascal. But I suspect he did. Talk about old school, that was Peewee. I wonder how many are left? Probably none. He was a
dying breed then, a country bumpkin with cheap, practical solutions to everyday issues. And now that his type has vanished, varmints are everywhere, even places where they’ve become quite a nuisance.
As for me, well, I guess I’ll now just sit back and brace for PETA letters to flood the paper with complaints about the audacity of an outdoor writer promoting cruelty to animals in black and white. Irresponsible, they will call it; me, of all people.
But when you think of it, wasn’t it better in Peewee’s day, not that long ago?
To me, it was … in more ways than I can print.

posted in Columns, The Dogs | No Comments

Jul
18
2009

Hilltown Spin

by Gary Sanderson

A while back during that invigorating January thaw, shady midday thermometer creeping toward 60, my hunting buddy and I decided to poke along through our tranquil northern hills, just looking for stuff. We weren’t far from Vermont, and the roads and bare southern exposures had the soggy suggestion of our northern neighbor in April, premature mud season in a northern Franklin County hilltown.

I had to drop my aging Toyota pickup into 4-wheel to get through one uphill rut-hole before taking a right, down a dead end, to check an orchard. Sure enough, a doe feeding on apples. She picked up her head, froze, looked straight at the vehicle and bound off as I banged a U-ie. Then we headed up the road to what had appeared all fall and early winter to be a worn, unoccupied Federal farmhouse at the dirt-road T. Come to find out, it wasn’t vacant a’tall, judging from the burly, gray-haired, coverall-clad man loading cordwood into the bucket on the front of his tractor. Good day to drop a few loads of wood through the cellar window to the furnace.

Curious and congenial under the spell of false spring, I hit the brakes, came to a stop, backed up a bit, nosed into the gravel driveway behind the tractor, departed the truck, and walked around the tractor to shoot the breeze. We wanted to chat with the man who owns the hills we sometimes hunt, has manicured them for a lifetime and, in the vernacular, knows them like the back of his hand.

We introduced ourselves and got right into it, meandering from subject to subject like a meadow brook flowing from riffle to corner pool. We talked about the land, old roads, streams and pastures; neighbors, history and family; immersed ourselves in good old-fashioned backcountry conversation stimulated by the same balmy air that had undoubtedly drawn the man to his chore.

Affable, the man imparted wisdom with a Yankee twang reminiscent of my late aunt Gladys, a spinster born before the turn of the 20th century. He wasn’t that old. Not even close. But he spoke the tongue of old-time rural New England, a charming dialect I’m quite familiar with, and happen to adore.

When we got onto the subject of deer, his interest rose like a flapjack on a hot griddle, bacon fat, of course. He didn’t care what the experts said, there aren’t the deer there used to be when he and his hunting party always had 12 hanging in the downhill shed by the third day of shotgun season, salubrious winter fare to fatten the family freezer. Then, 10 years ago, the deer disappeared. It’s improved a bit the past few years. The deer are coming back. But still, nothing like the old days.

Bears? Well, that’s another story. The man never saw a bear the first 50 years on his peaceful upland farm. Times have changed. Now they’re common. Turkeys, too. They showed up in the ’70s and have spread like multiflora rose ever since. Even moose have migrated south and taken residence, no longer a rare sight. But there aren’t the deer there once were regardless of what you read in the paper.

I took heed. You can’t beat straight talk from an old-time hilltown agronomist with no hidden agenda, or reason to fib. He was just telling it like it is, like it was, like the wildlife-science Ph.D. drawing a fat government paycheck doesn’t want to hear it. I know who to believe, and it ain’t the guy who stayed up all night in some barren, windowless corner to memorize facts, ace multiple-choice exams and get that piece of paper worthy of a giltwood frame, often fools’ gold.

Our conversation drifted to the economy, the cost of living, the price of cordwood. The farmer remembered when a cord went for 15 bucks. Now some are getting 200 and a friend says he can’t make a living at that price, which didn’t make much sense to him. He believed he could make a living at $200. But then, thinking on his feet, he quickly pulled it all into perspective. Simple math told him 100 cords would bring $20,000. Where does that get you today? Not far with the price of gas and heating oil; milk, bread, eggs and cheese, the staples. He delved deeper, figuring those fancy-pants city slickers making $100,000 a year could make a comfortable go of it. But there’s no one making that in his tiny world. Not even close, except maybe lurking real estate men.

That’s when I interjected with some flatland logic. I tried to tell him 100,000 bucks doesn’t get a family where it once did, not with a mortgage, two cars, bills, bills, bills. Even with two paychecks and a supplemental income, you fight to get by, living from check to check trying to feed and clothe the kids, keep them away from the dirty, dreadful, decaying dropout factories, a step or two away from the sparkling hilltop jail.

Bemused, he looked at me through a sun-splashed squint that suggested disagreement. Huh? Can’t make a go of it on $100,000? Must be those people don’t know how to add water to their oatmeal.

Wow!

That comment hit me like lilac scent wafting through the porch in a soft, warm breeze. Country wisdom is what they call it. Homespun stuff, better than anything you can learn from a book, or at the county jail. Maybe someone ought to explain that to the judge sentencing a harmless pothead.

We bade each other farewell before my friend and I headed for the truck to continue our ride to the ridge behind the man’s northern line. As we descended toward his lower meadow and climbed the dirt road to a neighbor’s farmstead — muddy driveway, cordwood stacked neatly, faded red sheds and barns, jagged driftwood gray along the bottom — I wanted to discuss the insightful barnyard conversation that had just transpired on the crest of that gentle hill overlooking the faraway fertile valley. I hoped my companion had appreciated as much as I our short, pleasant visit.

This hilltown squire — maybe a high school grad, perhaps not, but does it really matter — isolated in a slice of paradise known as upper Franklin County, had oozed wisdom you can’t buy at the academy. He knew exactly who he was and understood that profound sense of place formed by generations of continuous inhabitance. He could show you all his boundaries, the ancient corners, every rusty barbed-wire snare concealed on the forest floor; all the ancient hardwoods, outcroppings and boulders, the landmarks, the bubbling springs to sample and not.

Developers won’t destroy his family’s jewel, built on blood and sweat and thrifty Yankee acumen. Not a chance. He’s already taken care of that.

Sure, he likely votes the law-and-order ticket and believes in its bogeymen. But don’t expect to find him sitting at a cheesy, plastic, Wal-Mart table chawin’ on cheese dawgs, tubed filth scraped from a slaughterhouse floor. He knows better. What’d those Waltons ever do for him?

Sadly, the man’s a dying breed, vanishing from our landscape like the majestic elms and the dairies they sheltered in summer shade. When he and his ilk are gone, what’ll be left? A troubling thought; troubling indeed. Our foundation is crumbling, caving to the center. All that’ll be left is mossy rubble in a sunken depression.

Not a pleasant thought.

Horrid, in fact.

posted in Musings | No Comments

Jul
18
2009

Lost and Found

by Gary Sanderson

There was cause for concern and I could feel it in my hollow chest cavity, like the accelerated heartbeats were exiting my windpipe. Not a great feeling.

The wheels were spinning wildly. Had the mother removed it from the litter and hidden it elsewhere in the stable? If so, why? Was it sick? Dead? How else would a two-week old male pup, eyes opened for about a day, disappear from its whelping pen?

It had been a few days since I decided to give Lily some “space” by taking the three pups out of the 50-gallon box-stall drum in which they had been born, transferring them to a secure whelping pen placed in the back corner and leaving the box-stall door open, giving Lily free reign in the contained stables, six stalls, four open. The four-foot-square, portable, wooden pen would give the pups room to develop their legs, while the open box stall allowed Lily to get away, monitor her pups from afar and tend to them upon request. She seemed comfortable with the arrangement, choosing the back of an open stall some 15 feet from the box stall for her down time, always listening for the call of hungry pups.

Sometimes when I entered the stables Lily, snuggled behind stuffed chairs covered in storage, would appear at the mouth of the open stall, tail wagging, happy to see me; other times, I’d hear her stir, hop the whelping-pen wall and walk the runway toward me, ready for brief respite during a hilltop hayfield romp.

The last time I had seen the three English springer spaniel pups, born midday June 2, had been around noon, plump and healthy, tangled in a cozy slumber pile. One, a liver-and-white female, had opened its eyes two days earlier, the other two, both white and liver —male and female — had popped theirs open a day later; so all three were experiencing a bright new world in clouded color. I had entered the stables with Lily after returning from the hayfield, she checked her pups over the 18-inch walls and followed me toward the front door, which I exited, leaving her behind, confident all were safe and sound.

Later that day, just after Tiger failed to catch an unknown Argentine down the stretch of the U.S. Open, a glorious development in my world, I decided to feed my two mature dogs and check on the pups. Entering the front stable door, Lily was standing calmly at the threshold, wagging half-excitedly. She followed me up the runway toward the box stalls at the rear and we took a right turn toward the side door, which I opened, releasing her into the yard. We both headed for the kennel by the brook, me walking gingerly on a irritated left knee, she running to greet her buddy Ringo, or, as I usually say it for verbal effect, “her buddy Bingo.” You know, it’s all about the hard Bs.

When I reached the chain-link kennel and released Ringo, both dogs ran into the soothing brook, walking downstream, knee-deep, taking occasional drinks. Lily took a moment to lie on her belly and slurp drinks while enjoying the cool, free-flowing Green River tributary that bubbles out of some upland marsh in Shelburne’s Patten District. Finished drinking, she stood, water dripping from her swollen nipples, and shook a rainstorm before joining Ringo on the trail of something wild along the opposite bank, a temporary diversion.

Wagner No. 8 in hand, I entered the shaded, brook-side cook shed, opened a plastic container where I store the Iams, dumped a scoop-and-a-quarter into the skillet, walked it back to the kennel, placed it in the dirt floor and gave the dogs a sharp whistle that brought them quickly. Ringo new the drill, saw the skillet and came willingly. Lily followed, sniffed around the mouth of the cedar-floored 50-gallon drum she’s slept in so many times, and followed me back to the barn and her pup.

It was when we re-entering the box-stall home of the young pups that I discovered my crisis. To my astonishment, one pup was missing. A quick inspection told me it was the male. How could it be?

I watched Lily to see if she’d lead me to her missing pup; no such look. So I went on a search mission, pondering all the possibilities, some good, others dreadful. The first place I checked was the open stall Lily had been using. I squeezed past a covered stuffed chair and inspected the floor space behind it. No pup. Hmmmm? I leaned the chair back on its back legs and looked underneath. Still nothing. Perplexing indeed. Where had it gone?

I repeated the search in the other three open stalls, peeling back the sheets and blankets protecting chairs and tables, shifting old barrels and lumber piles, leaning an old four-panel door away from the wall. Still nothing visible or audible, it was time for a reassessment. Could it be wedged into a crack or hidden hole in the floor? Had it slipped through a space in the floor and fallen through into the cellar? Surely doubtful, yet not out of the question. The more I thought, the more I worried.

Pressed for time with work beckoning, I went into the house and calmly told my wife about the development. A pup was missing. Speaking to her brother on the phone, she promptly ended the conversation and accompanied me back to the stables to resume the search, she more alarmed than I.

We re-entered the stable, passed two open stalls on the left, flipped the light switch on the opposite wall and went directly to the open box stall and whelping pen. We looked at the two remaining pups in their pen and I reached down to stir the deep cedar shavings on the floor with my forefinger, making sure the missing male wasn’t covered in the corner. No dice. So I stood, backed off a bit and glanced down by chance, catching something white out of the corner of my eye wedged into the tight space between the pen and the stall’s east wall. Upon closer inspection, sure enough, the male pup sleeping peacefully. Relieved, I reached down, slid the pen’s corner away from the wall a foot or so to create space, picked the pup up and reunited it with its littermates.

In my first quick assessment after discovering a pup was missing, one scenario I had not considered was that it had escaped the whelping pen on its own. It was beyond my imagination that a two-week-old puppy, eyes open a day or less, could climb onto the protective, six-inch, footed platform surrounding the inner border of the pen, get its feet into the open doorway, again a good six inches above the platform, and tumble over the side to freedom.

The thought of the whole ordeal lit my face with a soft grin. Do you think that dog will hunt? Was it ever a question? With national-champions from the U.S., Canada and Great Britain behind both dam and sire, you can bet your house and all chattels on it.

But now, less than three weeks into litter, I have issues. My plan was to keep a female and carry Ringo’s pedigree forward. That could change. Maybe I’ll take inquisitive male.

Time will tell.

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Jul
18
2009

Summer Buck

by Gary Sanderson

It’s pushing toward dusk on a pleasant summer evening and I’m returning from my nightly trip to the top of the hill where I run my dogs. I round the corner and approach the scalped, lime-green hayfield where the bales had been removed earlier in the day. There it stood — a solitary, erect, tawny deer, side profile, head turned and staring me square in the eyes from some 70 yards away. Cruising slowly, I let up on the gas pedal a bit to get a better look and can clearly decipher the three-inch velvet nubs sprouting inside his vertical ears, full alert. Sure enough, a buck soon to be grazing under The Full Buck Moon.

Also called the Full Thunder or Full Hay Moon, the full moon of July is more commonly known as the Buck Moon because bucks’ new antlers typically push through their foreheads coated of velvety fur this month. The antlers will be fully grown by September, when the bucks will rub saplings and larger immature trees in the forest to scrape off the velvet to a rock-hard sheen.

This particular animal, wearing it’s reddish summer coat, didn’t look particularly large, although it’s difficult to tell when it’s standing alone in a scalped hayfield bordering an infant silage cornfield that provide nothing to compare it to visually. But it’ll be interesting to follow the development of this animal, which will be seen again, and again, and again on my twice-daily trips.

I believe I’ve now seen this animal thrice; once crossing the road in front of me at midmorning, again standing behind a thin sumac stand in an open field, again at midmorning, then last week. What drew my attention to him the first time and twice since was the fact that he’s always been alone, not in a small herd as does most often appear. I’ll clearly see him again, probably alone, now that his antlers will allow me to differentiate between him and the does I more often encounter.

He may turn out to be a spikehorn, maybe even a 6- or 8-pointer by the time he becomes fair game. Perhaps he’s the pronghorn I missed with a slug in the blackening woods last December. Who knows? But this much we know for a fact: the animal’s made it through at least one hunting season so far, and the longer he survives, the tougher he’ll be to hunt without the aid of the Rutting Moon, which whittles away at a buck’s innate cautious skills.

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Jul
18
2009

Unkindest Cut

by Gary Sanderson

Another downtown South Deerfield character became a memory overnight Friday when affable barber Gerald “Jerry” Fortier passed at home in his sleep.

Many a yarn was spun in that place of business, not to mention the practical jokes and fibs that kept the daily banter lively, Fortier’s devilish, crooked grin perpetual for his loyal customers. They say the lines at his wake were of legendary status, which came as no surprise here. Jerry Fortier was a downtown institution, right up there with Billy Rotkiewicz, who filled many of the same townspeople’s coffee cups and prescriptions regularly.

“Whether it was staying late on Friday to shave lightning bolts on your head for the Super Bowl or opening early to clean you up for your wedding, Jerry was always there,” wrote Kevin Wesoloski, from the Mill River District of Deerfield, who aptly called Fortier “a South Deerfield legend.”

Wesoloski continued:

“Jerry’s shop was the one place you could go to catch up on the local gossip, politics and sports info. He certainly loved his Frontier teams. What I’ll miss most is Jerry always knew who was having success in the deer and turkey woods. You could always count on him to find out who was filling their tags, and usually son Mark was right on top of the list.

“It’s comforting to know he passed peacefully and never had to retire. Fortier’s Barber Shop — it’s those special places and unique personalities that make small-town living what it is.”

A Conway native, Fortier recently celebrated his family’s 70th year owning a South Deerfield barber shop. The first one stood closer to the town common, where the current Cumberland Farms stands. Then he moved to his last address a short piece up the street, next door to the Hot’l Warren, where I can remember him working with his father and brother. In those days there were three barber shops downtown, Jerry’s, Charlie’s and Vic’s, each with its own spin on world and local affairs. If you went to one and it was crowded, you tried the others, stopping where you could get the quickest cut. “Once around the block,” was the standard request in the chair.

Those were the days of Professional and Wells’ pharmacies, Boron’s, Paciorek’s and Walt’s New England markets, Chick’s Luncheonette, Al’s Bar & Grill, the Bloody Brook, Hosley Brothers’ Garage, Gordon E. Ainsworth & Associates, Redmen’s Hall, and Ostrowski’s Bakery, with the good, hard-crusted Polish rye you had trouble cutting through with your teeth.

They’re all gone today, and so is the town’s last barber shop. For those who have walked through Fortier’s doors monthly for decades, a haircut will never be the same.

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Jul
18
2009

A Whately Hardwood Ridge

by Gary Sanderson

An orange dawn crept in over the faraway Belchertown hills, first a faint hue then a bright sliver that, within a half-hour of peeking over the horizon, burst into a blinding orange sphere. Quarter past 7 on a Whately hardwood ridge.

An old idyllic haunt of mine reaching back to my untethered teens, a friend and I had made an exciting discovery there the previous day. Unlike other oak stands we had visited, where only empty caps and wormy, rotten nuts remained, there were meaty acorns everywhere, many more than the resident creatures could ever eat by springtime. And, as the saying goes: Find the feed and you’ll find the deer.

Find the feed we had.

So there we sat on opposite ends of the mature oak grove, maybe 150 yards apart, muzzleloaders primed; he posting a run through the knobby bowls of a five-acre plateau, I watching another trail leading from the fields below to a dense mountain-laurel bedding area canopied by large ridge-top oaks. Between the feed and the deer sign we had discovered, our confidence was as high as it had been since gun season opened.

An avid wingshooter like me always enters deer season handicapped, starting blindly instead of scouting vigorously before the season to increase the probability of early success. It’s a fact of life that won’t change anytime soon. My way: Start focusing on deer during shotgun season and hope you “get into ’em” before muzzleloader ends. Seldom easy, we usually end up with at least a little venison in the freezer; that and many nirvanic trips through the woods, big and small, reading sign and using identifiable landmarks and landscapes to show the way.

Forever a spiritual bonus in the Whately woods for me is my understanding that the stone walls and cart roads were built, the decaying orchards planted by ancestors, which is as close to religion as I dare venture. But indeed I do feel a rooted spiritual attachment to those woods and walls of the hardy Protestant yeomen pulsing through my arteries.

Our plan was to get into our stands early, before first light, and wait for the deer to approach their beds. The previous year, with fresh snow on the ground and no acorns, we had found more than 20 beds on this southern exposure, one more reason for optimism. Isn’t it logical to conclude that if deer bed there when the feed is elsewhere, they’ll surely curl up when surrounded by nourishing, meaty acorns? We thought so. That’s why we were there.

Being more familiar with these woods than my friend, I pointed him toward my closest stand before daylight as we parted ways 50 or 60 yards up an old skidder road. The road would loop me behind him, between two shallow ridges and close to the corner of a stonewall I was aiming for. The run I wanted to post angles up a steep sidehill, past the stonewall corner and follows the wall pointing north to the laurels. I have seen many deer use it over the years; some bucks, many does, dawn and dusk.

Soon after we split, walking softly through damp hardwood leaves, mostly oak, and sparse infant laurel, the tranquility was broken when a turkey burst loudly from his hardwood roost above me. Then four more explosive departures in the quiet gray morning light. Flushed from predawn perches in still air, Turkeys create a startling ruckus, so I knew my buddy had heard and probably seen them fly overhead. I stopped to let the woods relax, listening for heavy movement, then proceeded toward my stonewall, wanting to arrive quickly and quietly as possible before kicking out a spot and blending into the terrain. If nothing came through by 9 or 10, we’d be out of there. But we both liked our chances, always a plus in this game.

As I sat motionless against a massive hemlock rooted along the wall some 20 feet east of the corner, I fine-tuned my senses, looking and especially listening for movement. The key is to see them before they see you. Good ears help.

The first interesting sound that caught my attention was an early-morning squirrel rustling the leaves below, then another fattened gray made a commotion downhill and to my right. At about 8, I was surprised to hear turkey talk behind me, from the general vicinity I had flushed the five big birds, presumably toms, an hour-and-a-half earlier. Had they been hens, I thought after the five tree-top flushes, there would have been many more in their segregated winter flock. It made sense I was listening to those same birds feeding through the oaks from which I had flushed them, but what I heard sounded more like hens and poults, with soft yelps — shuck-suck, shuck-shuck-shuck  — sharp clucks and soothing purrs.

Was it possible I was listening to gobblers? If so, I was hearing my first gobbler yelps, of which I had only heard, never witnessed. My question was soon answered when one of the birds interrupted the soft flock talk with a guttural gobble. Must have heard something it didn’t like.

Within a half-hour or so, five longbeards were no more than 20 yards behind me, feeding on acorns — walking, scratching, chatting, full-alert, beards dragging as they dropped their heads to dig and feed. Turkeys swallow acorns whole, and it has been said you can hear their gizzards grinding them if you’re close enough. I was close, heard nothing.

Theirs was an interesting routine. One would walk as the others stood motionless, eight eyes scanning the landscape for danger. Then another would walk backed up by six eyes, two more in front, heads motionless, alert. They continued to look out for each other as they fed. Never once did all five drop their guards in unison to feed. When a loud crashing noise emanating from the small settlement a half-mile below startled them, one stretched its neck forward and scolded whoever was responsible with a throaty gobble, quite a sight to see.

The big redheads stayed with me at least a half-hour, several times venturing to within spitting distance on the opposite side of the thigh-high wall, before disappearing down the hill to my left. Once they were out of sight and earshot, I rose from my cushy hot seat, clipped the sling back onto my gun and moved several blow-downs in front of my stand for future concealment, maybe even during spring turkey season. Then I strapped my belt and hot seat to my waist underneath my coat, buckled my fanny pack around the outside, slung my rifle over my left shoulder and walked toward my friend’s stand, examining deer sign along the way. Bits and pieces of crunched acorns were scattered everywhere on the forest floor, left behind by foraging deer.

I ascended a small, hardscrabble knob and broke through a cluster of infant hemlocks into the open hardwoods directly across a shallow hollow from my friend. He spotted me, stood and gathered his gear as I approached. When I reached him we walked out together assessing deer sign under a brilliant morning sun. We were surrounded by it. To be sure, deer were not far away. And although we had seen not so much as the flick of a flag, we were both content.

The longbeard flock had made our day and taught us something. The lesson was to hang in there after inadvertently flushing a gobbler from its gray spring roost. In the past when that’s occurred, I’ve always vacated the area to work another bird. In the future I just may sit quietly for an hour or so to settle the bird down, then try to call him. He may come.

Had we not traveled to those Whately woods on that brisk, still December morning, we would not have whittled away this membrane of turkey-hunting wisdom. So, it had been a good day.

Fruitless, yet fulfilling.

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Jul
18
2009

There’s No Quit in ‘Bingy’

by Gary Sanderson

An alder clump standing sentry on the west bank of an East Colrain spring hole catches the evening sun peeking over the sugar-bush ridge and casts a gray shadow just past the center of the small, light-green, algae-blanketed pond.

I’m parked on the farm road, shooting the breeze with the landowner who just happened to be there, while my dogs, English Springer Spaniels Ringo and Lily, burn some energy flushing whatever they can find concealed in the small, marshy wildlife sanctuary. They know the drill well, having been there once or twice daily every day of their lives, and they love every minute of it, especially Ringo, soon to be 9 but going on 5.

As the farmer and I talk — meandering in conversation from sugaring, to haying, to moose, deer, turkeys, coyotes, and, yes, even mountain lions — Ringo circles the pond, weaving in and out of the dense, wet cattail ring surrounding the pond, nose high, flushing red-winged blackbirds everywhere. The birds flee to the high cover, scolding him like the white-haired spinster next door, as Lily monitors his adventures from the periphery, switching between high spots on the farm road and the tailgate of my truck, now and then taking a quick loop through the heavy cover and returning to the open. Once there, she finds a promontory point, sits erect, ears and nose alert, and watches her buddy “Bingo” bouncing around, barking intermittently at the bitching blackbirds taunting him from low perches.

Over the years, Ringo has become “Ringy” most of the time, and “Bingo” or “Bingy” around high-energy activities. The hard “B” just suits him better than the softer “R” in the name given him by the field-trialer who fed him for the first nine months of his life.

The origin of the name Ringo is not difficult to ascertain. He was the son of Denalisunflos Ring, the 1996 national champion owned by the late and legendary Kansan field-trialer Roy French, who made his fortune extracting oil from “dry” wells before breeding arguably the finest field Springers in North America. His claim to fame in the late 90s was that he was still participating in national field-trial events past his 100th birthday. Apparently, his dogs inherited his spirit, at least that’s what they said about Ring, known for his boundless energy and stamina. They said he could go all day, a trait he inherited by “Bingy.”

The problem Ringy presented to his first owner was related to this insatiable hunting instinct and an annoying independent streak. Kept as a potential field-trial champion, he was quickly weeded out when it was determined that his instinct to hunt superseded his willingness to comply with commands. “All he needs is some one-on-one, a little TLC, and he’ll make a great hunting dog,” said the New York breeder/field trialer who delivered him to me in a Westfield parking lot. On that point, he was right, because his castoff has delivered me hundreds of game birds during eight joyous hunting seasons.

Yeah, Ringy has his faults, and I’m man enough to admit it. But they’re foibles I can cope with, because they’re all related to his illimitable hunting drive. He is, indeed, the first dog I’ve owned that required an electric collar in the field and elsewhere. As a young dog he’d make me proud with his enthusiasm for long, grueling hunts that typically produced many flushes and kills through exhausting thick cover in which many dogs would wilt. Not Ringy. The thicker the cover, the better he likes it.

The problem was, whenever we approached my truck after a long, strenuous hunt, Ringy’d spot the vehicle and decide to take one last defiant loop through an adjacent cover rather than retire to his Porta-Kennel. Sure, he’d come back eventually; and, obviously, it was always wise to follow him if you hadn’t limited-out, because a bird was almost certain to flush; but still, it was embarrassing and potentially dangerous near a road, so I invested in a collar and that “issue” was quickly resolved. Once he knew the collar was there, I rarely had to use it; in fact almost never. Call it championship-quality compliance, albeit with a sometimes defiant look that told you he’d rather do it his way.

These days, Ringy’s a different dog, sort of. Closing in on 9, he’s mellowed considerably, but not in the field, and as my neighbor and I chatted near his East Colrain spring hole, I pointed out the animal’s youthful grace and enthusiasm as he pounded the dense cover. In a matter of minutes there he had every rabbit fleeing and every bird flying and squawking at him angrily from the sparse alders, rosebushes, sumacs, and pines standing in the wetland. Now and then, he’ll flush mallards or wood ducks or Canada geese that have touched down for a rest, but this time of year, with the hayfield high, he’s more interested in the field birds. In the marsh, he focuses on the red-wings until he’s flushed them all into higher perches. Then he loops wide through the hayfield, stirring up the bobolinks, an unusual bird that stays on its low perch in the field until the dog is right on top of it, then flushes and hovers overhead like a Cobra chopper, scolding vociferously. Ringo will utter a frustrated bark now and then, akin to his bark at a treed pheasant or grouse, then move on, nose high and into the breeze, looking for another bobolink to flush and pursue. He’d flush those birds all day, Lily too, if I let them. But I usually let it go on for a half-hour or so, get them panting, give them a whistle, box them up, and return home.

On this day, immersed in pleasant conversation on a gorgeous spring evening, I had lost track of Bingy when he popped out of the cover to our left and approached my neighbor. He stood proudly at his side, head thigh high, with a limp female red-wing secured between his teeth. It was dead. Ringy had caught it and was damn proud of it. When Lily understood what was happening, Ringy teased her, played keep-away for a bit, head high, then lowered his head and dropped the dead bird onto the dirt road, guarding it briefly before leaving it for Lily. The 2-year-old bitch scooped it up, departed into the brush and quickly devoured it.

“Kennel-up,” I said to Ringo, who heard the command clearly, passed me, trotted along the edge of the road to the other side of the culvert, nose high, crossed the road, worked the other side and leaped into his box, reluctantly of course. The observant Lily soon popped out of the brush and followed suit. With her appetizer in the tank, it was time for dinner at home.

Soon after we departed, the wetland birds settled back into the habitat and continued whatever activities we had briefly disrupted. One less red-winged blackbird there meant nothing to the big picture, and everything to Bingy. I guess that’s why he continues to chase those birds. Even though it appears to me he’s dueling windmills, he knows that every once in a while he comes up with something. And every once in a while is good enough for Bingo, who, like his fabled father, has never understood the word quit.

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