I must be slipping a little. Here I am a perfectly normal human being, and all I want to do is choke an overgrown chipmunk.

 Or beaver, squirrel or whatever a groundhog is?

  The only purpose in life he seems to have is to stick his nose out of a hole and if this rodent with super powers sees his shadow, your telling me I'm gonna freeze my butt off for six more weeks? Give me a break!

 But according to the news — yeah, that's getting to be a reputable way to get your information — he saw his shadow, and now we've all got to suffer the consequences.

That's like me and Doc holding a conversation on the wisdom of Socrates — I can barely spell it, and all he wants to do is scratch his butt. He gets shook up when a leaf blows across the yard, you think I'm gonna take his a opinion on world affairs.

But according to these folks up north, we're in for another six weeks of winter. Sounds like another Yankee conspiracy to me.

I've had it with this weather. It's rained so much I'm thinking about going bass fishing, in my back yard. Yep, I got so much water in my back yard, I could probably catch something just by tossing a plug off the back porch and letting it sink to the bottom of one of those mud holes.

And that ain't the worst of it. One minute your freezing, the next your pulling off clothes. Every night around eight or so, I've got to walk Doc. Now, before I even think about walking out, I check the Weather Channel.

 The weather keeps changing so fast THEY can't even keep up. I know one afternoon about a month or so ago, I was out side with my shorts on, then when Mel and the girls came in around six or so, there teeth were chattering.

 “What's wrong with ya'll, it ain't cold out there?” All I got was, “Stick your head out the door” ... and ya'll know me ... I stuck my head out the door ... I thought I had frost bite on my ears!

I don't mind it so much around Christmas time, you expect it to be cold then, in fact you kinda want it too be. It's kinda hard standing around a fire barrel, popping firecrackers, with sweat in your eyes.

 And I've got to admit, when they were calling for a few snow flurries Christmas Day, I was a little excited. But like usual, nothing.

 If you remember back that far, twenty years ago, we had Hugo. And ya'll remember that year we had us a White Christmas. It started snowing that Friday, and it didn't stop till Sunday.

That was something else. Seems like we had almost two foot of snow that year. Now I love snow as much as the next kid at heart, but that was a little bit much. And to be honest if I never see that much again, it won't hurt my feeling.

I'm a little too old now for falling in the snow and making a snow angel. Course if I fell down in it now, it'd still look like a snow angel, but all it would be is me, busting my rear end, and then me trying to get up.

I use to like the winter. If you ever spent a hot summer in a sawmill you'd understand. There's nothing like working all day with your clothes stuck to you and water sloshing in your boots, and you haven't stepped in a mud hole. So it didn't matter how hard you worked, you did stay a little cool.

 But age and arthritis has finally come to visit.  If you're around my age, you know what I'm talking about. The fingers get cold, then the back, and then that's it, you're done for the day.

Now their telling me some muskrat had him a premonition. We gonna have six more weeks of winter. I'll fix that.

Next year I think I'll head up north, and just before the sun comes up, when he goes to stick his nose out of that little hole, the only thing he's gonna have on his mind is “What's that noise?”

It's gonna be me working the slide on that pump shotgun of mine.

And if that don't work, “Sic um Doc”!!!