Don’t get me wrong, I love spring. It’s a magical time of year, when the birds migrate through from the tropics, the turkeys thunder in the woods, the sun shines, and everything turns from gray to green.

That does not, however, mean I want to experience it in November. But there I was Saturday, November 14, bowhunting on the eve of Michigan’s gun deer opener, when two pairs of bluebirds flitted in to look me over. Granted they dined on the white berries of poison ivy vines, a decidedly autumn activity, but still. I have never seen a bluebird from a treestand in November, and here were four of them.

As I watched them, I could distinctly make out the calls of chorus and wood frogs nearby. Never you mind how I am enough of an uber nerd to know those calls. I know them, OK? And I heard them plainly. And it is not spring.

The next morning, the sound of gunfire was punctuated by a gobbling turkey. Over and over he gobbled, just like he will when he’s lovesick in April. I half expected to see trilliums blanketing the forest floor.

This may seem like blasphemy to non-hunters, but to hell with them. I don’t want 60-degree sunny days in November. Make my November crappy. Give me gray skies and a stiff wind that’s pushing ducks around. Cold temps and even a little snow to keep the deer up and moving. Inversion on the lakes to bring on the ice.

Yeah, gimme that. There will be another spring soon enough.