Brandon Zalegowski is a clerk at the Middle Road General Store in Sidney. His duties include weighing the deer that hunters bring to the store’s tagging station.

My passion for bicycling across November’s brown and gray landscape grows, and in the Belgrade Lakes region, a huge plus strikes me as obvious, particularly on weekdays. Traffic proves so much lighter compared to summer and leaf-peeping time.

With opening day out of the way, the most popular greeting in Maine now changes from “How’s it going?” to “Git yer deer yet?” Once your reply becomes “yes,” the next question becomes what to do with your deer.

As the Northern Hemisphere prepares for winter, the nights are getting colder and longer, even as our terrestrial landscape is getting bleaker since most of our colorful leaves have fallen. There will be several interesting highlights this month, including Jupiter at its best for the year, Venus returning to our evening sky, a comet still getting brighter, and even a little asteroid that will buzz Earth at less than the distance to the moon.