The most wonderful time of the year?

 I don’t know what the guys were thinking that wrote “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year,” a Christmas carol that Andy Williams released in 1963. Don’t get me wrong. I love Christmas. But now is the hap –happiest season of all. Why? Let me count the ways.

1. Hunting Season has Begun! Yea, I know squirrel season opened a month ago, but for me, hunting season officially opens when dove season begins September 1. That’s the way it’s been since I started hunting before and after school with friends in high school and the way it probably always will be.

My boy Mace, a friend, Ryan, and I sat around a farm pond Wednesday evening. We should’ve headed to a food plot I’d scouted on public land, but the pond was closer. We only took home three doves, but while we (mostly I) missed a few, it wasn’t our shooting. We just didn’t see many birds.

Didn’t matter, even when we it rained on as we walked back to the truck. Mace had a ball catching butterflies, my lab got a good swim in and I got to blow the cobwebs out of the barrel and smell the sweet smell of burnt gunpowder.

2. Football Season! It’s been a long 8 months since the Huskers put the hurt on Arizona in the Holiday Bowl. And I’m tired of hearing the talking heads speculate about who’s going to start at quarterback. Let the games begin.

3. Open Window Season! I throw open the windows in the house whenever I can, partly because I’m cheap/frugal, and partly because I tire of breathing the same air-conditioned air for weeks on end during the summers in this humid end of the state. When I crawled in bed last night, I actually shut them partway to keep a bit of the chilly wind out. I was still a bit chilled when I crawled out of bed this morning. I even flipped the heat on during the short drive to work. Ain’t it great?

I love these reminders that fall is right around the corner. Reminders that it’s time to get my gear in order, boots waterproofed, shotshells loaded, decoys cleaned and the goose blind camouflaged.

Mace and I are going to run out to Lake McConaughy this weekend and get one last taste of the beach and summer. I might fish, but I’m more inclined to track down a waterhole in a wheat field and see if I can get enough doves for a meal. Next weekend, it’s geese and teal. Then maybe some grouse. Then deer, pheasant, more geese, etc.

Like I always say, keep your summer and give me a winter, a spring and two falls. It’s the latter that’s the most wonderful time of the year.

See you out there.