There’s nothing like wood heat for my taste. But if the wood isn’t right, well, it’s another story altogether. Then there’s real potential for problems, which is my current predicament, quite annoying.

I’ve just brushed off from a trip to the woodshed, a place where I’ve spent far too much time lately, trying to make the best of a bad situation. I received two loads of bad oak, red and white, knobby, large and wet, too large and too wet to burn, too knotty to split, nightmarish. And even when you get it burning, if you choose to call the dull, glowing smolder a burn, the heat value is poor at best, even with the damper open wide.

From what I gather, this problem is not unique to me. It appears there was a shortage of good cordwood this winter, given the increased demand stimulated by a rush of wood-stove purchases over the summer. When speculators predicted heating oil would climb to more than five bucks a gallon, concerned folks took measures to find money-saving solutions. Thus the run on wood stoves. The problem was that this was the wrong year for that. Last winter’s deep snows kept cordwood suppliers out of the woods between mid-December and mid-February, when trees are traditionally felled, cut and split for the fall market. The inaccessibility factor resulted in a shortage of seasoned hardwood that couldn’t meet the demand, thus a creosote debacle for area chimneys.

Much of the wood sold this fall was either green, wet or both, a problem for anyone trying to heat with it. So all the neophytes heating with their first wood stoves had to be wondering why people so love wood heat, nothing short of a chilly hassle when burning the stuff delivered to me in November from the West Whately woods. What they probably don’t realize is that this same useless wood would have been excellent next winter, whatever good that does at the present time, steam blowing from our ears.

”You say you bought that from a friend?” chortled Blue Sky, owner of Colrain Tree Service, upon delivering a load of black locust and assessing the quality of a large, wet oak mound in my woodshed. ”What kind of friends you got, anyway?”

All I can say is thank the heavens for Blue Sky, my neighbor and friend from the wilds of East Colrain. He’s alternative indeed, just how I like them, and ethical to his country core. Yeah, it’s true he was the beneficiary of my first-ever $200-plus purchase of cord wood. It happened this year. But all I can say in his defense is that at least his wood burns hot and effortlessly. Just toss a chunk atop a bed of hot embers and — bingo! — savor the toasty delight. Not so with the other stuff, about which I had immediate suspicions, as soon as I learned the guy selling it intended to split tops that had been down for two years and deliver it the same day. Never good news.

I told him to drop off a load and I’d see how it burned before I accepted more; said I’d had problems with oak before, that it’s great when seasoned properly, useless when wet. I didn’t want to get stuck with more than one load that wouldn’t burn. But that’s exactly what I got, three cords of unburnable oak, wood that has made a bad winter worse. The minute I handled it, tidying-up the pile he left in my backyard, I knew it wasn’t right, wet and weighty. He told me it would be OK if I left it out in the air for a while. I was skeptical, well aware that cordwood doesn’t season after October, especially oak. Well, my instinct was right, and I regret to admit there were no miracles at 817 Colrain Road.

I could have gotten by with five cords of Blue Sky’s good stuff and one load of the bad. But it was that second bad load that killed me, the one I didn’t want, the one I didn’t even know had been delivered until returning home from bird hunting and being asked by my wife where the wood in the backyard came from. I’ve been battling it ever since, trying to mix it in with the first two loads of Blue Sky’s seasoned stuff, and the wonderful two loads of black locust he later dumped to top the bad with good. Hail, hail Blue Sky, a businessman with a conscience, heart of gold. The man understands wood and wood heat. The stuff he delivers is split to specified length, not too large, burns hot, produces no creosote. And take it to the bank: He dumps an honest load, no fuzzy math from East Colrain.

A rule of thumb with oak cordwood is that it takes two years to season. You can get away with a year split and seasoned if it isn’t green when split, but you’re still better off, even with such a load, to give it two years. Oak is grainy and absorbent, soaking up water like a sponge, even down and in the round. For this reason, it needs time to dry after it’s split, much more time than rock maple, black or yellow birch, beech, cherry and hickory, our most common native firewoods, all of which season sufficiently in a year or less. If you’re lucky enough to find apple or walnut or elm, they’re all good but difficult to find for heating. White ash and black locust are also good, and convenient in a pinch because they burn green and season quickly. Drop any of the aforementioned woods except oak during the dead of winter, before the sugar bush flows, while trees’ water still resides in the base, and it’s perfect for fall if split. Not so with oak, which must be split, left out in the air, both ends open, covered on top, if you plan on producing acceptable BTUs.

I discovered the wonders of locust this year, at Blue Sky’s suggestion. Even he’ll admit it’s not as good as hickory, yet not far behind; and who wants to harvest hickory, anyway, our aristocratic indigenous nut tree? Not so with locust, considered non-native invasive, worthy of thinning, ideal for cordwood, desirable for fence posts because it doesn’t rot. It burns hot green, hotter still when split and seasoned for six months, or harvested standing dead. It throws intense heat, and is equally good for the fireplace. Although I’m not certain about the non-native designation, locust is indeed invasive, and landowners like to get rid of it, favoring the more traditional New England hardwoods to populate their wood lots.

I thought the two cords of locust I bought just before Christmas would get me through my wet-oak issues. I was wrong. Even with additional work, it’s going down to the wire. I tried to get through it at first by filling the bottom half of my stove-side cradle with the wet stuff, hoping the hot locust heat would drive the moisture out and improve the combustibility. It helped slightly but took too long, and now I’m almost out of locust with a mound of damp, smelly oak staring me in the face, annoying me daily. So I’ve taken to splitting the oak small daily, so that it will dry faster stove-side. But that requires work, not to mention a sufficient supply of seasoned wood that’ll burn hot enough to dry the small oak wedges quickly.

Luckily, while searching for the best oak chunks to split this week, I walked to the back of my dense wood pile and, to my euphoria, discovered a honey hole of seasoned stuff that had been buried. I threw much of it out to the front of the pile and will try to stretch it and the locust as far as I can while continuing to split oak a little each day, anger emanating from each thud on my ancient hemlock chopping block. Hopefully, this system will carry me to lilac season without purchasing more dry stuff. We’ll see. It’ll be close.

In the meantime, you’ll find me splitting, piling, sweating, brushing debris from my shirt, and cussing a blue streak under my breath daily. I guess what bothers me most is that my problems came to me directly from Whately, the place where my Sanderson roots lie deep.

All for a buck.

Sold, American!

Taken for a ride.

A pale, yellow, crescent moon cast a wry, toothless grin from the clear, southern, predawn sky, remindful that it wasn’t going to be easy. The message was unnecessary. For me, it seldom is. But there was reason to be optimistic on this, the first Friday of muzzleloader deer season.

A discovery made late the previous afternoon while attempting to push deer past my hunting buddy had brought newfound hope to what had been a difficult season — warm, snowless and tick-infested. With the fruitless walk through an oak grove, then a dense pine bedding area complete and my buddy’s orange in sight from a well-used run across a shallow ravine, I had spotted a bare spot of disturbed earth that wasn’t there the last time I performed the same maneuver; a buck scrape, fresh.

I stopped to investigate, pointed downward and spoke out to my friend, seated some 40 yards away. “There’s a fresh scrape right here,” I said, the first I had found since shotgun season opened.

He signaled with his hand for me to join him and I did just that, meeting at the base of a massive twin red pine I had used dozens of times for cover while posting the intersection of three busy runs. My buddy stood, slipped on his backpack, slung his muzzleloader over his shoulder and started walking.

“Follow me,” he said. “There’s another big scrape I don’t believe was here the last time I came through.”

We walked back toward my truck, eyes focused on the forest floor in search of a pawed patch of earth, and I spotted one, not 30 yards behind the stand.

“Here it is, right here,” I pointed, as he came my way and took a look.

“Nope, that’s not the one,” he said. “There’s a bigger one not far from here.”

He was right. Not 15 yards away, centered on a small, circular carpet of light brown leaves shed by a beech sapling, laid a dominant buck scrape, the kind deer hunters die for. Above it hung a gummy hemlock limb, behind it a four-inch, tine-scarred black birch. Classic.

Following hard overnight rain, it was difficult to assess just how fresh the scrape was but it had definitely been made that week, perhaps only a day ago. There was a good chance the scrape was active, meaning the buck that made it would be back to check it twice daily searching for receptive does. After three days, he’d come no more.

Had I not decided to leave my fanny pack in the truck to lighten the load for my short push, I would have freshened-up the buck’s calling card with the “Tink’s 69 Doe-in-Rut Buck Lure” I always carry. But I could perform that duty the next morning, when it wasn’t going to be difficult to spring out of bed. Fresh optimism is a wonderful feeling during deer season.

With the foreboding moon at my back, I drove up the steep hill in the morning, parked and exited my truck, dropped the tailgate and packed up for the slow twilight march to my stand. The circular beech-leaf mat and scrape were easy to pick up in the gray morning light, and the buck had not returned. I quickly doused the area with Tink’s, saturating the scrape and spraying the hemlock branch and black-birch trunk liberally to create a big stink before taking my stand.

On the way to my stand, 35 yards away, I hung a couple of Tink’s Scent Bombs seven feet high in small hemlocks. When I arrived at my familiar twin red pine, I hung out two more scent bombs for cover scent and kicked out a stand 90 degrees to the right of where I typically sit against the trunk so that I could clearly see the dominant, freshened-up scrape. The wind was perfect, blowing west-northwest, diagonally from me to the scrape. I couldn’t have ordered it up any better. Now all I had to do was sit patiently still and wait to detect movement. I knew my ears would be useless, given the blustery wind and damp forest floor.

Around 8 I caught movement from the opposite direction I was anticipating. Sure enough, a deer, walking quickly, wind at its back; then another, and another, following single file. As they passed through the pines, maybe 75 yards out and angling away, they appeared and faded from view several times, but once I thought I saw one of them hop up on the back of another and my adrenaline raced. Although I had not yet gotten a clear look at any of the three animals and had seen no antlers, I thought the big boy was there and would reverse direction as soon as he got to the downwind side of my Tink’s stink bomb.

Much to my delight, that’s exactly how it played out, as the three deer passed out of my view heading east and soon reappeared heading back toward where they came from. On two occasions I again saw one try to mount another, but when they came into clear view I was certain none of them wore prominent antlers. Hmmmm? Maybe another 4-pointer like the one we took the previous week, or perhaps a spikehorn, but clearly no discernable antlers from my vantage point.

The three deer passed me again, heading west, then angled south onto a run where I have seen many deer pass in 10 years, mostly does. Still searching for horns, rifle shouldered, the three of them came to within 40 yards and were bald. Two passed and disappeared into the slash and the third never showed itself after disappearing behind small hemlocks. Frozen, rifle still mounted, I held out hope that I was dealing with a spikie concealing its antlers behind its ears, and waited fruitlessly for it to reappear. Finally, getting stiff and uncomfortable, I slowly dropped my rifle across my elevated knees and waited. An hour later, still no movement. The third deer had vanished. Must have slipped by screened from my view, I thought. So I slowly spun my head 45 degrees to the right, staring straight at the scrape. Time to focus on what brought me there.

By then it was clear to me that what I had witnessed was the thin-faced doe and her twin fawns I had observed several times near three apple trees in a field above my house. One of the fawns, a button buck, was for the first time “feeling its oats” and playfully mounting either its mother, sister or both on their way to a bedding area below me. When they cut the trail I had taken to my stand, they smelled where I had rubbed up against the low browse, banged a U-ie and bedded on the knoll above me. The nature’s classroom alone was worth the trip, having never before witnessed a buck of any age mount a doe.

I refocused on the buck scrape below and at about 10:15 a.m. I laid my rifle across my lap, dropped my arms to my side and elevated my butt to shift from a resting point that had grown uncomfortable. As I settled into my new position I moved my head and a piercing “whew!” broke the still morning air. I slid my eyeballs uphill, toward the small hemlocks where that third deer had vanished, and scanned the landscape. I could decipher nothing before the startling sound again broke the silence.

“Whew!”

Then I saw her, the thin-faced doe, facing me, ears and body erect, nearly invisible against the brown forest floor and gray-brown undergrowth. She was looking me square in the face hidden behind my Realtree mask. She took two bounds away from me, toward where her fawns had bedded maybe 90 minutes earlier, then stopped, faced me again and blew one more time before disappearing into the woods.

I had once again learned how difficult it is to beat deer in their environment – even when the wind is right and they have no clue you’re there.

It’s a lesson that’ll be repeated many times in a deer hunter’s lifetime.

Too many.

When I think of squaretails, native squaretails, our royal native trout, I always think back to the monster, circa 1970, being lugged up the hill home on a stringer by a boy of 8 or 10, tail dragging on the pavement, hot summer eve, accompanied by his older brother. It was caught in a local unnamed hilltown impoundment by a lad with the surname Dickinson, which does nothing to give away his town, given that Dickinsons are stitched deep into cultural quilt of virtually every Pioneer Valley hamlet. Yeah, a lot like horse manure, those Dickinsons are everywhere here in the valley and its bucolic hills, alive and dead, as were the native squaretails at one time, even my own, which is sadly no longer the case.

But let’s not digress. The reason I bring up the subject of brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis) is that a lunker, one nurtured at Bitzer Hatchery in Montague, was caught Saturday at Ashfield Lake, a stone’s throw from the hollow where fourth great-granduncle Asa Sanderson built his tannery during the first decade of the 19^th century, an enterprise swept from the face of the earth, toward Conway, by a December 1878 freshet. Back in the 19^th century, that pond surely held a native 10-pounder or two similar to the hatchery-grown version taken on a Thomas buoyant spoon Saturday by a man whose positive identity is difficult to come by. Rumor has it that the new state-record holder’s name is Peter Herron of Easthampton, but don’t hold me to it.

“I haven’t been able to confirm the name,” said longtime Ashfield Rod & Gun Club officer Russell Williams. “I was told Peter Herron, with two r’s. That’s all I can tell you. Maybe Dave Warren will have his name. He weighed and measured it at Dave’s Pioneer Sporting Center (in Northampton).”

The Pioneer proprietor had nothing to add.

“Sorry, can’t help you,” he said. “The guy’s a customer of mine, does a lot of archery, but his name escapes me, and he took the paperwork with him. He’s responsible for sending it to MassWildlife.”

Can’t let an minor detail like that get in the way of fresh, breaking news, so we’ll go with the rumor and wait for confirmation down the road. If the man lived in our readership, then I’d chase it with a little more determination. I’ll get it. Stay tuned.

The facts we know are that the fish was 26 inches long and weighed 10 pounds even, bettering the previous state-record brookie by 3 pounds, 7 ounces, a good squaretail in its own right.

The fish had been stocked a day earlier by a MassWildlife crew that had picked up its load in Montague. Knowing it was a special load, including some fish that were going to be tagged for prizes by the Ashfield Rod & Gun Club, Bitzer Hatchery Manager John Williams fattened it up with some display-pool breeders, six fish weighing more than four pounds, two brookies and four rainbows. One of the brookies was the big boy.

“We spiced up the load but that one had to be a fluke, one that had escaped our nets in the past,” said Manager Williams. “Most of our big fish are rainbows. This brookie had to be 6 or 8 years old.”

The Ashfield club tagged 10 fish, including some of the big ones. The biggest of the bunch, the one that had escaped the nets of hatchery personnel for a few years, also apparently escaped the tagging crew at the lake’s edge, because it was not wearing a tag. It did not escape the hook, though, in this case a treble-hook attached to a Thomas lure.

So ends the tale of one state-record brookie that had little time to enjoy Huntstown.

Different strokes for different folks — a threadbare cliché pedantic editors caution against, a principle I generally agree with.

Clichés are indeed boring and unimaginative, a lazy-writer’s tool that should be avoided. But there are exceptions to every rule, and who would know that better than I, a rule-breaker from way back? So, given the spoken and written feedback I receive, the strokes-and-folks cliché fits like, ummm, kid gloves. Oooops, there I go again. Pedants beware: a rebel.

What’s bugging me is that from time to time in this space, I am presented with a dilemma when traipsing off the trodden path of hook & bullet writing. The question is: Who should I write for, endangered sportsmen seeking the nuts and bolts, or non-hunters who love the outdoors, history, local issues, or streamside gristmill ruins, thus prefer the more playful, imaginative stuff that sometimes appears here? It’s an issue I often ponder when wandering into introspection I know will annoy some in my hunting/fishing fraternity, those who think I should stick to stocking and harvest reports, fishing derbies and turkey shoots, heroic hunting tales. It’s the same crowd that screams I’m out of place as a gun-owner and outdoor writer to criticize the NRA or jump into a political fray t’other side of the reactionary red, white and blue nimrod majority threatened by extinction here in the upper Happy Valley.

Fact is that even in the hilltowns, once a bastion of hunting lore and tolerance, it’s not always cool to be a hunter anymore. Sad but true. And the people who find the change in public perception most revolting expect me to join their loud, obnoxious diatribe. Sorry, fellas, ain’t happenin’. I’m a gun-owner and hunter of a different fabric, one who believes strongly in the right to bear arms but hopes we can still find a way to co-exist with self-righteous gun-control crusaders. The way I look at it, we have a sacred 200-plus-year-old document supporting us regardless of what the antis say or do. That’s a fact, one that doesn’t figure to change anytime soon given the conservative makeup of our federal judiciary, overstuffed with lifetime Reagan, Bush and Shrub appointees. So, all I can say to my paranoid gun-toting detractors is that we’re all entitled to our opinions, me no less than the dittoheads who parrot Rush, Hannity, O’Reilly and Wayne LaPierre, and who insist their foes are un-American and unpatriotic, even Commies and pinkos, heaven forbid. Infamous Joe McCarthy, the angry Irishman from Wisconsin, must be rolling in his shameful grave, or is it sham-ful? Guess it depends who you’re talking to. You be the judge.

In this, an age when hunters are falling by the wayside faster than newspapers, only a fool would stick to the traditional ”accepted” way of penning an outdoors column. At least that’s my view. I base it on numerous forms of feedback, all of which seem to indicate that a good chunk of this paper’s readership is bored to sleep by hook & bullet fodder, preferring more creative, eclectic narrative. My goal is to satisfy both types of readers, a delicate balance.

It’s no secret that you can never please everyone in this business. I knew that when I started 30 long years ago. So why try? Instead, I’ll stick to my masochistic ways, going with the flow and taking my lumps from both sides.

One writes to be read, not agreed with.

I often tell anyone willing to listen that once I reach the top of the steep, mile-long hill behind my home, I consider myself to be in southern Vermont, even though the state line is actually 10 miles in the distance.

When you hop the crest of the hill up there, you’ve entered a pastoral Grandma Moses scene: green rolling meadows and corn stubble; pungent cow manure; sugarbush and mature hardwood forest; white, timber-framed farmhouses with country-red barns; brick one-room schoolhouse and a few surviving neighbors who attended it.

It’s so peaceful to creep along those upland roads, fine-tuning you peripheral vision to catch the wildlife secreted along the edge of a pasture or standing motionless in the budding woods. Soul-soothing, in fact, particularly around sun-up.

On a pleasant early morning a couple of weekends ago, I bought the Sunday newspapers and a large coffee at the mini-mart a couple miles down the road, passed my sleeping home and snuck to the top of the hill to see what I could find. I was most interested in turkeys for obvious reasons, but would have been happy to see a deer or bear, coyote or fox, hey, even a load-mouth red squirrel racing across the road would be OK. And even if there were no wildlife sightings, just the scenery and cool morning air would satisfy.

I swung up through Graves’ Glen, Peckville and East Colrain on this particular a.m. diversion, scanning the landscape for a big tom turkey strutting for an admiring harem, but found none. No deer or bear or other noteworthy creatures, either, by the time I had completed a wide circle back to the crest of the hill where I started.

I dropped the truck into second gear and started to descend the steep hill back home when I spotted a graceful bird that appeared to be a ruffed grouse walking across the road near my personal deer-season parking place. As I drew closer I was able to make a positive identification. Sure enough, a partridge, and behind it another, acting in a peculiar manner. Seemed to have no fear of my approaching white truck. In fact, it seemed to be challenging me for the road.

When I got right on top of the little game bird, I knew why he was paying little attention to the imminent danger confronting him in the middle of the country road. Other, more important, matters on his mind. The first bird that had crossed the road into the woodlot was his springtime mate, and he was in full strut, like a miniature tom turkey — tail fanned, breast and neck feathers fluffed. A beautiful sight, and rare indeed.

The lovesick feathered creature stopped a couple of times to perform his courting ritual before scooting into the woods after his mate.

With the elegant springtime lovers in my rear-view and my home approaching at the base of the hill, it had been a worthwhile trip. Short and sweet as sugar-maple blood.

A couple of wildlife incidents to report from the home front, one involving a bear
related to a bigger story, the other an otherwise insignificant little skunk.

First the bear, which appeared out of nowhere in my back yard on the gray
evening of Aug. 16, just before 8:30, me in the shower, my wife watching TV. It must have been movement that drew her attention from the TV and into the backyard alcove near a quite table, umbrella and chairs where, lo and behold, stood a big black bear, up close and personal. My wife says the animal stood on all four feet higher than the table at the shoulders and was silky black with a brown nose, “just like you see in the pictures,” a wonderful sight.

I too had caught black movement through the same windows on my way around the corner to the shower but didn’t investigate, assuming it was female barn cat Blackie scooting from the barn cellar to the woodshed, a common sight from the skittish animal my adult kids describe as “sketch.” I was already in the shower when my wife entered the bathroom excitedly announcing the presence of the bear right out the window. The bear had disappeared by the time I exited the shower stall to investigate. She said it had heard her talking to me, met eyes through the window some 10 feet away and sauntered off toward the brook in no great hurry. I would characterize her as in awe following her first close encounter with a bear, one many folks live an lifetime without experiencing, and I had no reason to doubt her, given the black streak had earlier ignored and the aggressive
barks emanating from my backyard kennel along the brook it had crossed to depart.

Because it was alone, I figured it was probably a male, or boar, that had been drawn to the yard by the ripe front-yard apple tree that has never in my 12 years on-site been so productive. I also was near certain my assessment would be proven in the morning by damage to the tree. Hungry bears have a tendency to break large branches from apple trees when feeding, and I assumed I’d find such “pruning” the following morning. Well, it didn’t exactly happen as expected, no morning apple-tree damage, but after midnight there was indeed a large limb down as I pulled into my driveway from work. Since then, no sign of the bear and no reports from neighbors, so I guess it
was just passing though. Then again, it may return for future pruning of my apple tree and those of my neighbors before all is said and done. Time will tell.

On the night of the sighting, I will admit I was a little concerned for my dogs, and I checked them a few times to make sure there had been no bear attack. Although I have heard of bears attacking backyard dogs one way or another contained, I didn’t expect it to
play out in my yard, thinking it a long shot that the bear would bother two adult dogs inside a chain-link kennel seven feet high. And indeed nothing of the sort occurred. Then, early this week I gained perspective during a telephone conversation with an East Colrain neighbor and distant relative who I suspected had experienced many encounters with backyard bear-dog encounters. Confirming my suspicion, he said his dog often chases bears from his yard, and that the bears flee, sometimes treeing to get out of harm’s way. He told of one occasion, with guests visiting and a bear treed, the curious visitors went
into the backyard to observe the bear closer. After a short while, the big animal objected to the gawkers and descended the tree trunk to the ground, where the dog took after it, nipping at its heels to disapproving grunts. Even then, the bear never turned to confront
the dog. On another occasion, the same dog returned home from a ride with the man’s late wife and, as they approached their driveway parking place, sure enough, a bear stood at the corner of their barn. When the woman let the dog out of her car it immediately chased the bear, and they both sprinted halfway across a field before the bear stopped,
wheeled around and froze, face to face with it’s pursuer. They appeared to touch noses momentarily, briefly sniffing at each other before turning and trotting off in opposite directions, the bear toward the woods, the dog homeward.

So I guess it’s not impossible that a local black bear would attack or even eat a dog, but it appears unlikely, even though I’m sure there are those who’ll read this and
beg to differ. Either way, a general rule of thumb regarding bears is that they’re nothing for man or beast to fool with. If you don’t believe it, try it, and be prepared to suffer the consequences.

That leads me to the aforementioned “related bigger story” concerning bears, specifically the opening of the split, 25-day Massachusetts hunting season on Tuesday. The September segment provides 17 days during the heaviest foraging period for bears, when wild fruits, nuts and berries become plentiful, and cornfields ripen. Orchard growers and dairy farmers alike look forward to hunters’ assistance in removing troublesome bears that cut into their profits and time. The second segment of the season
provides 18 days between Nov. 2 and Nov. 22, when bears are still out there for the taking but can be more difficult for hunters to pattern. Expect about 150 bears to fall this year, most of them during September, when hunters will post well-worn trails leading to and from orchards and cornfields. Those who prefer avoidance of agricultural acreage locate productive nut groves and berry patches frequented by hungry bears, which love hickory nuts, beechnuts, walnuts and acorns.

As for the skunk on the home front, well, there’s actually more than one, and I’ve been aware of their presence for months, usually around my sheds, barn and outdoor cat-feeding stations. First there were two adults, then two little ones my wife once snapped close-up digital photos of standing two abreast atop the Iams cat foot in rusted, No. 9 Griswold skillet on my porch. I promptly moved the feeding station to the shed, where it took the skunks little time to find it, so I relocated it to the backyard woodshed, which they quickly found. My chief concern about skunks is that they’ll spray my dogs, not the worst thing that can happen but not enjoyable, either. So, I had been both cognizant and capable of keeping my Springers away from the stink bombs until Sunday at halftime of the Patriots’ preseason loss to the Eagles.

Just before dark I went to the barn, released little Bessie from the box stall where I had fed her, reached for her empty dish I intended to put away and heard a hiss and commotion that sounded like a harmless cat confrontation, then a scampering dog’s nails on the barn floor. When I broke through the threshold of the stables into the main runway, Bessie was sneezing and rubbing her face frantically with her paws as the young skunk waddled right past me, within kicking distance, and into the stable, where it hid. I wasn’t expecting it in the barn and I got burnt before I knew what hit me. It was Bessie’s first introduction to a skunk, and she didn’t enjoy it one bit, a direct hit to the face. She vomited a small pile of Iams pellets at the back door before exiting to the backyard and furiously scraping her head and shoulders on the lawn, trying unsuccessfully to remove the skunk’s spicy spray. She soon got over it, sort of, and Lily and Ringo knew exactly what had happened as soon as they got whiff of her, running excitedly to find the culprit before I called them off.

Ringy’s an old veteran of skunk attacks. He too took a direct hit the first time, but never again. He has never stopped pestering skunks but has learned to sidestep the mother load, taking only a light dose. I suspect his daughter will soon acquire the same skill. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if she already has it down. I have faith in Little Bessie. She exhibits intelligence and enthusiasm, two admirable traits in a bird dog, qualities she’ll soon get to display in the field.

That’s about all I’ve got for now … life and times from the Meadows … tavern fare.

The Magnolia sisters, Star and Saucer, white and pink, have opened their furry fists to reach for the warm April sun, mimicked by cousins Daffodil and Forsythia, who introduce radiant yellows to brighten the days. Never appears a surer sign that spring turkey season is here.

I happened upon a boss gobbler and four deer feeding in a secluded pasture just yesterday, which bodes well for Monday’s opening morning. If a boss gobbler’s alone in a field today, there’s a good chance he’ll be vulnerable tomorrow; at least that’s how I see it, and I know that from experience. So things are looking up. Very positive for now.

It’s after the big boys have gathered their hen harems that they’re difficult to call to the gun, and for good reason. Look at it this way: If you’re sitting poolside at the Sheraton Tara entertaining a tableful of frisky lady suitemates, are you going to wander to the bar looking for more? Not likely, and the same can be said for the average boss gobbler. Why bother?

Anyway, I can tell you I’m looking forward to Monday morning. In fact, I’m feeling confident if the conditions are right. But everything can change quickly if other hunters invade your spot. Then it becomes a crapshoot, one that seldom works out for anyone.

But I’ll be there, before light, hour or two of sleep, buddy by my side, walking to a massive red pine just inside the woods line that’s been good to us in the past.

After I’ve unpacked three or four box calls, an equal mix of slates, glass and strikers, and moistened up my Quaker Boy Pro-Triple mouth call, we’ll be ready for action. Maybe I’ll owl-hoot, maybe not, depends on my mood, but you can be sure it won’t be long before I emit my first series of soft clucks and yelps, trying to simulate early morning tree talk. Then, once the first gobble bellows from a tree, the game is on. Maybe I’ll be aggressive, perhaps play hard to get. Could be easy, maybe difficult, but it will be fun, that’s for sure, and entertaining.

If we get one, fine; two, better. If unsuccessful, we’ll be back the next day, weather permitting, and the day after that, until we score. We may even change spots along the way, playing it by ear.

On the way home each day, we’ll scout the fields, pick some fiddleheads and shoot the breeze. Free and easy, sleep-deprived and exhilarated, my twisted concept of springtime bliss.

You know what they say: to each his own.