“All the leaves are brown, and the sky is gray.” Although I went for many a walk on a winter’s day, unlike the Mamas and Papas in California Dreaming, I would have to say the leaves are gone, not brown.  The woods and fields in winter are stark but beautiful.

    My winter day walks always included a gun.  Most days, from the time I got it for Christmas when I was 12 years old, it was my semiautomatic Remington rifle with the 17-round magazine.  It had a variable three to nine power scope on it.

    Sometimes I carried my single shot .410.  Those days I planned on kicking brush piles on field edges hoping to jump a rabbit. My usual luck was to jump a rabbit when carrying my .22.  I shot at a few with my .22 but never hit one.  I shot many squirrels with my .410 but preferred the .22.

    I was a little jealous of my friend Hal with his over and under .22 and 410.  He could switch from rifle to shotgun with the push of a button. But both were single shot, and I liked having multiple rounds in my .22 rather than having to take my eyes off a squirrel I missed to breach the gun and load another round.

    I loved my scope, too.  Even with good eyes back then, it was amazing how a gray squirrel could run up a big oak tree and disappear.  Sometimes there was a hollow for them to hide in, but often they just hunkered down tight to a limb and didn’t move. 

    About the only way to find them was to scan every limb with the scope, mostly looking for tell-tale ears sticking up.  I often gave up before finding them.  But sometimes a nest was the logical place for them to hide.  The balls of twigs and leaves were very obvious in the leafless tree.

    With my .22, I sometimes shot into the nest.   I could tell by the sound of the bullet if I hit a squirrel.  Since I was shooting blindly into the nest, it was usually a wounding shot and they would crawl out and fall.  But I climbed more than one tree to get to a squirrel I heard my bullet hit but did not come out.  Finding a wounded one while hanging from a high limb was always a thrill.

    I got very frustrated one day when I shot a squirrel and it fell a few feet then got tangled in vines.  I could not climb that tree, its trunk was too big to hug and there were no lower limbs.  I shot that squirrel and the vines around it many times trying to knock it loose but never did.

    All winter when hunting that area, I would go by the tree and look at the carcass of the squirrel that frustrated me so much. I hated to waste meat.

    Cold winter days often meant building a small fire to warm my hands while in the woods.  On dry days it was easy, with dead leaves and twigs littering the ground.  Wet days were a challenge, but finding a cedar tree with somewhat dry lower dead limbs and peeling dead bark near the trunk usually meant success.  And I always carried strike anywhere matches with their heads dipped in wax to keep them dry.

    Take a winter walk in the woods and enjoy the beauty.  Deer season is over and the woods are mostly empty, so you can relax and enjoy yourself.

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