Winter is coming

With the first winter storm of the season early in October we are reminded that soon the white stuff will be here to stay. Fortunately, the snow melted away again, giving us enough time to finish the yard work. My wife and I worked like dogs these last few days to clean up the fallen branches from the willow trees, cut down the dead tree trunks (from the willow trees!) We piled everything into a huge mountain in the garden. This morning it looked like rain and the wind was at 25 km/hr gusting to 35 km/hr. Not a good time to make a fire. But I got lucky. The wind died down a bit, so I lit the match. The dry branches burned fast, the flames were high, but  there was no danger. The grass was still wet from the night and any flying sparks couldn't do any harm. Everything burned within half an hour. Now there is only a small mountain of white ashes. Mind you, they are still hot and glowing inside. While I supervised the fire I cut the willow trunks with my chain saw and my miter-saw into bite-sized pieces to be split later and burned in our stove in the basement.
When we built our house and planted the trees and shrubs in the yard (we have 1.4 acres), we made the mistake and planted willows around the perimeter. Not a good choice! Willow grow fast and within a few years we had a nice wall of trees around our property, but the problem with willows is the branches are brittle. They break off easily. After every storm we have to pick the fallen branches from the property. We pile them up in one corner and burn them in the fall and in the spring. It's a lot of work, time-consuming and can get exhausting, especially since we aren't getting any younger, and with every year things take a little longer to do and get more tiring. The only positive thing is that we don't have to buy firewood for the winter.
Today I saw a robin in the bird bath and I'm wondering if it is normal for robins to be here still at this time of year. We have lots of sparrows, chickadees, bluejays, blackbirds. The finches are gone. I also saw one junco. There are usually more around at this time. Perhaps they will still come.
Instead of working I would have liked to go fishing this morning, but the work needed to be done, and the weather is not encouraging to go fishing. I want that to be fun.
I'm looking forward to go deer hunting in early November. I can hardly believe that another hunting season is only 3 weeks away. It will be a bit of a disappointment this year. I bought a scope for my muzzle-loader and a new scope for my rifle. I was hoping to shoot deer with both rifles, now they screwed that up for me. We can only shoot one deer this year, either with a bow, a muzzle-loader, or a high power rifle, because, apparently, the deer count is down. I don't know if that is so. The last time we went fishing in the Whiteshell, we saw so many deer, most of them females with two fawns, which makes it difficult to believe that  the numbers are down. I am anxious to find out how many deer I'll see this year during the hunt. That is usually a good indicator.
Hopefully, we won't get too much snow too early. Neither do we want it too cold. Over the years we've experienced many different conditions. Sometimes we had no snow, sometimes lots. Sometimes it rained, other times it snowed or sleeted. Sometimes it was too warm, and other times we froze on our stands. But we diehard hunters take it all in stride. As long as we can get out there and enjoy the great  outdoors.
There are many people who believe hunting is wrong, but that is their opinion and their right, as much as it is my right to go hunting and fishing. Our sport creates a lot of jobs, brings in millions of dollars and finances the upkeep and preservation of animal habitats. There is a lot of talk about going 'green'. Well, hunters are all for it. We want to make sure that the forests are not deforested, that the animals have sanctuaries where they can breed and where they are safe.
Hunters love nature and the animals that share this planet with us. We don't shoot them indiscriminately. What we shoot, we eat. Most people in the Western World love their meat. Beef, pigs, sheep, chickens, ducks, geese, and turkeys (remember Thanksgiving?), they don't grow as vegetables in the garden. Somebody has to raise them, kill them, and cut them into steaks, roasts, hamburger, fried chicken. Somebody makes the sausages and the bacon. Think about that.