86 hours untilwe load up the gear and kick off 2006. I haven't had a decent night's sleep in over a week. I have no fingernails left. I'll get out this evening and shoot a few arrows, but that will probably make it worse.

Our opener is supposed to top out in the low-mid fifties, probably in the mid-forties in the a.m., no rain. Things are still pretty green around here, so visibility will be limited. PA archery license sales are down, under 300,000 again, which is a good sign b/c some of our areas are getting crowded.

In other news, I went out scouting on Saturday and I stopped at a newpiece of groundthat I got into (a likely weekday evening hunt). The deer sign looked good, and I was working my way around a bench when I just happened to look out through the woods and something yellow caught my eye. "I know that shade of yellow," I thought to myself. I checked it out, and sure enough it was a nice solid three-pronged stalk of ginseng - yellowed and the berries and some leaves were already off. So, I started gridding the hillside, and I bet I found 200+ plants in a little spice thicket. I didn't pick any of it, but it's stored in the memory bank. Really odd because this is not an area where you'd expect to see any ginseng.