So.

Question:

How many pictures can you take in a 41-minute half-mile stroll down a wooded lane?

Answer:

One hundred and eighty.

So,

How many of those new pretty pictures do you get to look at today?

Answer:

None.

Why not?

Because today was October 1st, of course. The opening day of deer season. So you get to look at a picture of...

A dead deer.

Which is probably just as exciting to a few of you. And the vast majority of the hundreds of people I talked to today. That nice buck up there happened to be the first deer of the day. One of roughly 120 animals my assistant and I processed through. And one of the nicer ones.

Yeah, we were busy. Stepped out of the truck around ten o'clock and only got to sit down in it one more time, when I was desperately trying to reach a game warden for one of many enforcement situations that came my way, until we shut down after 7 PM.

Lots of young folk with their first deer. And retired folk I've been visiting with annually for many years. One busily retired onto eBay, another saying he went too soon, and what is he going to do when hunting season is done and the lakes freeze over?

Another fellow figured out we'd been meeting right here almost every October 1st since 1977. Years later his kids came with him with their deer.

Now he's bringing his grandkids.

A neighbor came through, with one of his lion hunting hounds whoofing in a box in back. Seems someone stole his dog. Physically swiped it from his camp. A friend spotted it tied up in a hunting camp fifty miles away, and recognized it. And made a cell call.

Just an hour or so later said neighbor was in said hunting camp with a big stick (literally), and retrieved said dog.

Helps to live in a small population where everyone knows everyone.

And his dog, too.