Lucy had been running up the road for just over three miles, with two men in a truck following behind. No one else around for miles.

She made a sudden dart to the right, into the wind, and stopped about 40 meters from the road. The truck stopped.

Lucy froze. Exposed, with only dense sagebrush for cover.

She looked straight ahead, and a quick peek to the left. The driver of the truck got out and quickly, but silently, went straight towards Lucy.

When he was about five meters away, two grouse flushed from the sage. Lucy watched forlornly, wondering where the shotgun was, and then took off again, looking for more birds to point.

The call had come just before lunch. One of my wardens, out in the field by the Continental Divide, looking for the desert elk.

And having no luck.

"I'm bored," he said, "and I think you ought to be bored, too."

So, 75 minutes later I was in his truck, and we headed back into the desert. With Lucy, the German wirehair, in her box in the back.

We needed to discuss and plan next fall's hunting seasons anyway, and get them pretty much settled by the time we have the big meeting on Monday. So we can either do this by email, by telephone, over several cups of coffee, or out in the country in a pickup truck.

One of these is more fun.

By the time we turned off the Interstate, we had our deer seasons set. And one of the elk seasons. Still got some heartache over a couple antelope seasons. (Part of his motivation for getting me out in the desert is to convince me there are nowhere near as many antelope as the numbers say there should be. 'Course, we're mid-winter and most of the antelope are elsewhere, so he didn't convince me of much.)

No luck finding the desert elk. Not even any desert deer. Checked west of the Divide well into the gas patch, and found nothing but roads, tanks and trucks. Went as far east of the Divide as the drifted snow would allow us, and nothing there, either. Coming back to the Divide is where Lucy got her break to get out and run.

It was pretty incredible to watch her work. Running along at 14 mph and then suddenly she would tear off upwind, her nose high in the air. Scented out six grouse from more than a hundred meters.

These birds did not hold when she pointed, and she gave chase in frustration.

Made careful notes of where the grouse were. The federal land management agency responsible for this allotment is planning a "spike" treatment. That's a "tebuthiuron" treatment, i.e. poisoning, to kill off about half the sage on this public land. As well as half of all the other broad-leafed plants within the treated area. To make room for more grass for cows.

Nothing big. Just 3,000 acres or so. As in, almost five square miles.

Five square miles of sage grouse nesting cover, brood-rearing habitat, and yes, now documented, winter habitat.

Not that spike is necessarily bad. Some old, dense sagebrush stands can be improved with some thinning. But spike treatment is tricky. Guess the soil pH just a little wrong, or overestimate the clay content by a few percents, and you've got an 80-90% kill instead of 50%.

Got home to find several more emails on the harvest survey results we got earlier. I and a couple others found a major faux pas in several of the elk areas, and now they are telling us it cannot be fixed. At least not quickly. And it's our outfit's fault, not the contracted survey group.

So we'll have to come up with recommendations for the 2002 fall hunting seasons without really knowing what the 2001 seasons did.

Lovely.