Now don’t get me wrong, I’m right there with you, suffering along with the very same affliction. Try as I might to limit my indulgence for new gear in preparation for a recent European hike — a two-week, 125-mile trek around Mont Blanc through France, Italy and Switzerland — I came up short in the resolve department. That’s right, despite really having all the gear I needed, I nonetheless ended up with a half-dozen new items in my pack. I should know better than to think otherwise.

Standing atop the old stone tower on the summit of Douglas Mountain this week, I was struck by the number of options before me. To the northwest I could spot a handful of Maine’s western mountains, along with the ghost of Mount Washington in the distance. To the east, late-season kayakers paddled on Sebago Lake. Beyond Sebago, cars streamed to Portland and Maine’s coast.

SOUTH PORTLAND — Bamboo fly rods run upward of $1,500 and $2,000. That’s not the kind of cottage industry that would make it in a poor economy. Unless you’re in Maine.

Peak rut. The phrase quickens the pace of every serious deer hunter. When word goes out that “it’s on,” it’s time to drop everything and be in the woods. If we only knew what triggers it, we might be able to plan a little ahead.

During the 1950s when hunters routinely wore black-and-red or black-and-green plaids, hunting fatalities took upwards to 19 lives per year in Maine alone — a terrific carnage compared to today.

The stories statewide the past two years about the harsh winters of 2008 and 2009 and the toll those aberrations in weather took on the deer herd are starting to play out at tagging stations.

Perhaps you saw the movie “The Big Year” earlier this fall. Starring Steve Martin, Jack Black and Owen Wilson, the movie is adapted from a book by Mark Obmascik of the same name. The book describes the efforts of three birders to see as many species as possible in North America in a calendar year.

Over many summers of outdoor fun in Maine, the Christie family has developed a few annual, and never-missed traditions that have survived year after year.