Dear Readers: You’ve been very tolerant. For months now—in email subscriptions, in RSS readers, and on my website—I have been subjecting you to the unpalatable blandness of the blog title People. Animals. Nature. Yet there has been nary a peep of protest. The affront to your good taste is, I hope, at an end. Next … Read more
My fingers slide under the muscle, separating it from the layer below. My knife snips tendons and traces the curvature of bone. I add the slab of venison to one of the 13×9 pans on the kitchen counter. Hours ago, this leg was a deer. In the early morning light, the animal was moving somewhere … Read more
What was that just ahead, in that puddle? Walking up the paved path, I looked hard, trying to make sense of what I was seeing. It had been raining hard for two days, and gusty. Anything light enough to be caught by the wind could have blown about and settled here. A couple of plastic … Read more
The snow is almost gone from our yard already. Here, facing northwest across the Winooski Valley, an April without white stuff on the ground is a rare gift. Soon, crocuses will be in bloom. We’ll be planting peas and salad greens. And the world will be buzzing with life. The spring peepers, returned from the … Read more
Kate was the only dog I’ve ever known who howled when you petted her. Her human—my good friend Steve—always insisted she was singing. Like him, she loved people. And birds. She stayed with me and Cath a few times over the years, when Steve had to be out of town. Indoors, she always parked herself … Read more
When I was a vegetarian, I had no clue why modern people hunted. Now that I hunt, I still puzzle over it. Every hunter has his or her own reasons, of course. I wonder mostly about my own, and even there it’s often hard to lay claim to certainty. Of two things, though, I feel … Read more
Reaching my spot in the woods that morning, I had no illusions about my chances of seeing a legal buck. My first three years, I had come up empty-handed. My fourth year, I had gotten lucky. This was my fifth year. Given that only one in eight Vermont hunters tags a whitetail each autumn, I … Read more