Weather

      Bird season stayed hot for far too long. Usually there are frosts and cold mornings, often an inch or two of snow that never sticks around. Not that there aren’t ever warm days, but just not so many of them as this year.
     The past summer was dry, actually the drought started almost two years ago. As happens every year, people started talking in August about what the fall foliage season would look like. Some said the leaves would just turn brown and drop, others said the colors would be brighter than ever. Every year it is the same arguments and, honestly, nobody ever seems to know.
     What happened was the leaves turned late and then refused to drop. And the WIND NEVER BLEW to help loosen them. Two weeks into the month of October the leaves still clung to the branches, but then reluctantly started to fall.
     During the summer an unusually high number of grouse broods were seen along the roads. This excited the bird hunters and made us all optimistic. The dry spring may have wreaked havoc with the gardeners, but it certainly helped the hen grouse raise those broods. We could not wait to get the dogs in the woods.
     And in October, those birds that seemed to be everywhere in September, just disappeared. The warm weather made the dogs miserable. It made us miserable too.
     Fortunately, in the middle of the month the weather changed and the grouse came out of their hiding. About that same time the migrating woodcock showed up. Hunting became fun again. The birds were in their usual fall places.
     Where had they been the first two weeks of August? Sitting in trees watching the hunters and their dogs? It certainly was easy to imagine that. I wish I knew.