The nights are getting cooler and the days are getting shorter, which can only mean one thing -- for Brad anyway -- hunting season is just around the corner.

Don't get me wrong, it's not that I'm not looking forward to treading through three feet of snow, looking for just the right rack, but Brad is taking it to an extreme.

He's ready to get his guns out and start sighting them in. He's been talking about the kind of new clothing he's going to need for the big hunt, and he's making plans for a trip to Gillette so we can get our doe/fawn antelope permits.

He keeps telling me we're not going to do any deer rifle hunting in Nebraska this year, but I keep seeing him salivate over some of the bucks with racks that are "at least 6 x 6's." And I know, by the time it's all said and done, we'll be out the first weekend of rifle season trying to find the biggest buck in Southwest Nebraska.

Our hunting will start the first or second weekend in October, when we go to Gillette and run through the end of December, when muzzleloading season has finally ended, with a little pheasant and rabbit hunting thrown in -- just to hone his shotgun skills.

Personally, I can hardly wait.

Last year, between Jeremy, Brad and I, we had six deer permits and 10 antelope permits.

Thankfully, we only got four deer, and ten antelope -- not to mention the one I helped my dad out with -- since I was the one skinning them, dressing them out, putting them in vacuum-sealed bags and freezing them.

This year, with Jeremy in Basic Training, we'll only have the chance for two deer and eight antelope. I should be able to whip through them in a snap.

My freezer is almost empty since I've spent the last year making jerky and summer sausage for anyone and everyone that will eat it. I figure over the next month, I can spend most of my day, every day making sausage and jerky for anyone and everyone and finish off the last 50 pounds of meat that's still left in the freezer -- unless someone were to call and tell me how much they'd enjoy having a little bit of year old deer meat or antelope. I'm in the book. (Hint, hint.)

I guess in a way, I'm looking forward to hunting season as much as Brad is. Not so much getting it started as I am getting it over with.