I think I should be screaming, but for some reason I'm not.

Lost almost 50 photographs from this morning.

Decided to empty the memory card before heading out this morning, and I was a little surprised to find it still almost full of photographs as I started taking moon shots an hour before sunrise. And realized I had done it again. Pulled the card out when the computer said it was done moving the files, not when it actually was done.

So I deleted the files by hand to free up memory. And sure enough, there were the little error message windows on the screen when I got home, telling me the computer was unable to complete the write function to drive G:.

So, close the error windows, insert the card, and I'm ready to download the mornings pics to show off to the wife.

And it says there's only one photo on the card. A nondescript shot of five feral horses silhouetted against blue sky. Put the card back in the camera, and it says the same thing.

I can only guess the damn machine decided to finish the erase function. No idea why it spared one picture only.

I know they were all there. Looked at them all as I drove home. (Yes, Trin, I don't want to hear anything about it.)

A whole bunch of mediocre moon shots. It kept going in and out of clouds all morning, tons of opportunities like a few days back. A couple that may have been good.

And the sunrise. Rather bland, especially for an Easter morning, because of all the clouds in the east. Except for the one shot. Bright sun in lower right, orange clouds everywhere else. You couldn't even see the powerline in the foreground.

A bunch of so-so shots of this morning's strutting grounds. Taken just to document where the birds strut, none close enough to mean much.

But we took the high road home. Busting through new snowdrifts, with photos of that. And heelers racing in snow again.

And the horses. The g*d*m*f* feral horses.

Two drinking from the creek, not thirty meters away. A grey and a roan. Unperturbed by me sneaking up through the sage, nor the heelers coming down for a drink.

The stud, mare and yearling in the next draw, with the ochre blaze on the mare.

And then the strawberry roan stud on the road with his three completely white mares. Almost twenty shots alone of them. Standing broadside, running, facing us, or at an angle. Stepping forward, three white horses side by side, to stare at the crazy reddish coyotes that bailed from the truck and ran yipping down the road.

The two beautiful shots of two studs running side by side after the three white mares as their stud led them off. These two ran right along side the road, synchronized.

The pronghorn buck digging in the frozen mud (I know not why) just west of Oil Town. And the other standing broadside in front of the sun.

The young buck walking between us and an active oil pump. Great shot for discussing wildlife and their reaction to extraction industries.

Gone.

And last year's fawn standing broadside at 30 meters, with the tufted hair between its ears. And its mother, bedded in the greasewood just 30 meters father away.

The redheads, lesser scaup and pintails on the barrow pond immediately north of the highway. Or the two shots of the mists rising off the right-of-way, backlit by the morning sun. And the several shots of clouds backlit against the Ferrises, the basin filling with mist as clouds roiled over the top.

The two new-born thunderhead clouds over Rendle, produced by the warm sun hitting the east-facing ricks and slopes, already rising several thousand meters into the sky.

All gone.

Craaap.

Time to get dressed (fancy, as in new blue jeans and a snap western, non-Chambrey shirt). Wife is singing at Easter Mass, so the sisters and I are going to sit outside, drink coffee, and read the Sunday paper.

Just like my father-in-law used to do, every Sunday.

Then Easter brunch at our favorite Sunday buffet place. The one decorated with all the antiques from the auctions we attended.

Our window booth is already reserved. For 13:15.

(Anybody got software for retrieving lost files off an Olympus memory card?)