This time of year I can barely contain my excitement. Scott feels it too. The slightest shift in the weather towards Fall and we’re on the phone with each other immediately.

“Can you feel it? CAN YOU FEEL IT? It’s getting colder! It’s that time of the year again! Huntin’! HUNTIN’! Aiiiyeeeee!!!”

“Yeah, I can feel it.  It’s been a mild summer so it’s going to be a cold and wet Fall, I can feel it. This is going to be a banner year for blacktail bucks! I can’t wait, dude! Can you FEEL it?!!!”

“Wait…  are you outside?  Go outside.  Stop.  Listen…  do you feel that???!!!!”

We’ll talk for a bit. Just enough to get myself all fucking wound up, and then I’m pacing the room and bouncing off the walls. Sometimes it’ll get to be too much and I’ll have to let a little bit out. I’ll make some kind of long, drawn-out, and high-pitched sound, shaking my fists and doing jumping karate kicks around the room–then I’ll be OK. It’s not good to keep that kind of shit inside.

So it’s been very cool in Northern California the past few days. The phone rings the other night and it’s Scott. “CAN YOU FEEL IT?” I’m so hyped I couldn’t fall asleep. I was still awake at 7am, thinking about hunting and Trinity.

Ohhh, it’s time.

…eating chili every night with half a gallon of Crystal hot sauce dumped on it, cocktail hour, grilling various meats for dinner, sitting by the campfire every night, taking pulls off the warm bottle of Cappy, getting out of bed before the sun comes up, taking naps in the afternoon under a tall pine tree, listening to the wind whip through the trees, not another stranger for miles around, having the whole mountain to ourselves…

Ahhh yes. It’s almost time to go home, errr… I mean… time to go back to Trinity.