HOWEVER WE PARSE IT, ALDO, THERE IS STILL NO VENISON IN MY FREEZER

RISING LAKE SMOKE OBSCURES MADELINE ISLAND
THIS  MORNING

BLUE SKIES, PLUMMETING TEMPERATURES AND GUSTY WINDS PREVAILED
 THE LAST DAY OF THE 2014 WISCONSIN DEER SEASON

Monday, 9:00 AM.  0 degrees F, wind W, light with moderate gusts.  The sky is partly overcast but clearing,   and lake smoke obscures Madeline Island.  The humidity is low at 66% and the barometer is very high, at 30.75". The snow squeaked underfoot as Buddy and I took our morning walk.
   Yesterday, the last day of the 2014 Wisconsin gun deer season, started off promising enough with a rising barometer and bright sunshine, but the clearing skies brought colder temperatures as the day wore on.  The variable westerly winds became extremely gusty by early afternoon, the gusts announcing their approach first with a sigh, which then became a murmur, and finally a roar that shook the  treetops.  Each gust was followed by a period of calm, which eventually morphed into yet another, even stronger, gust. It was as though some super-animated force was working a giant bellows.   I cleared out of the woods by three o'clock, as the truck thermometer read eight degrees.
   The  deer season is over, and like several recent seasons the Old Man, hunting by himself,  has come up empty.  I really thought this was my year to put venison in the freezer, even though it was a "buck's only"  season in the Northland.  I saw two does on opening day Saturday and another on Monday,  but  saw no more deer the remainder of the season.
   The early-winter snow and cold was a challenge, and I can give many more excuses for my empty freezer, but I will forego the self-flagellation and simply say that the time and space lines did not connect me and a whitetail buck.
   Of course, the perennial consolation of the unsuccessful hunter lies in the following quote from the famous Wisconsin ecologist, Aldo Leopold:
   "After all, that is the biggest part of the hunting, just to see the game, and together with the fresh air ought to be enough to satisfy any man."
   That is also the solace offered by the DNR to those who suspect that the agency doesn't really know how many deer there actually are in the Wisconsin woods.
   But however we parse it,  Aldo, there is still no venison in my freezer.