Oh, deer! November

For the next eight days or so, local style guides call for fluorescent orange or pink outerwear. Through November 12 it’s deer firearms season in our neighborhood.

I’ve never been much of a deer hunter, although I love being out in the woods, I have trouble sitting still. I’ve usually been happier chasing grouse or ducks, or, many springs, turkeys.

early snow, whitetail deer

Photo by J. Harrington

Compared to years past, we’ve seen few “backyard” deer or turkeys this year although yesterday afternoon, while walking the dogs, we saw a small flock of turkeys emerge from the neighbor’s woods, walk a short way down the middle of the road, get spooked and fly away. Maybe they encountered a spirit or two left over from Halloween.

Back in the years when I was a more dedicated duck hunter, I recall getting annoyed by the fluoresccnt orange requirement since we didn’t want to wear it in a duck or goose blind. Of course, neither did we want to take a chance on getting shot by mistake nor written up by a conservation officer on purpose.

These days I’ll get my exercise and fresh air clearing as many leaves as I can from the driveway in hopes they won’t clog the snow blower come that season.

November

Elizabeth Drew Stoddard

Much have I spoken of the faded leaf;	
    Long have I listened to the wailing wind,	
And watched it ploughing through the heavy clouds,	
    For autumn charms my melancholy mind.	
 
When autumn comes, the poets sing a dirge:
    The year must perish; all the flowers are dead;	
The sheaves are gathered; and the mottled quail	
    Runs in the stubble, but the lark has fled!	
 
Still, autumn ushers in the Christmas cheer,	
    The holly-berries and the ivy-tree:
They weave a chaplet for the Old Year’s bier,	
    These waiting mourners do not sing for me!	
 
I find sweet peace in depths of autumn woods,	
    Where grow the ragged ferns and roughened moss;	
The naked, silent trees have taught me this,—
    The loss of beauty is not always loss!

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