They're done!

All twelve season proposals (I don't count the bighorn sheep herd that we don't hunt... how hard is it to type "CLOSED"?), all twelve sets of five-year data summaries, and all 84 six-year graphs. All twelve management evaluations and, last but not least, all twelve summary pages (our infamous "30.30" forms).

Boss and boss's boss came through town at lunch time, so I handed the package over to him as they summarized their legislative experiences. Package was complete except for two of the four smaller management evaluations that don't really need to be done until late next week. And these were completed and in his inbox before they got to Muddy Gap.

These two evaluations would have been done with the rest if I hadn't had so many phone calls this am. Three different nonresidents trying to figure out where they should apply to hunt. Two with no clue as to what there is in my country (one from Florida, the other from down south in Colorado).

Another phone call about my nearly extinct bighorn sheep herd. Have had more conversations about that remnant population in the past three weeks than I did in the previous three years. First noticed the herd was going downhill in the 80s, so we sent out a few field researchers to follow them around, watch them and collect their shit (really) for three summers. And I and a habitat guy figured out what the problem was, and how to fix it.

All we needed to do was burn off about a quarter of the trees on the mountain. No one wanted to do that. Warned them we would then lose the bighorn herd. Now, almost 8-10 years later, when we're down to less than 20 sheep, everybody wants to take extreme measures to save the bighorns.

Well, first, folks, we need to burn off about a quarter of the trees on the mountain...

Should mention this about lunch. There were only four occupied tables in the non-smoking section of the restaurant. Bosses, from a town two hours away, knew the folks at one of the other tables, from a different town two hours in another direction. And they knew the folks in the table besides us from some other town.

Don't know who the heck the guy was at the fourth table.

Anyway, the paperwork is done! Wife and I taped the two Buffy reruns last night, and I think I'm gonna go up and watch them again. The rest of this job can wait.