Most of my time on check station yesterday, as well as the afternoon and several hours at night, was spent going through field notes and summarizing lek data, trying to come up with just three numbers that the boss absolutely, positively needed early today.

He called early, and I had the numbers. Not as complete as he wanted, but without all the data, it was the best I could do.

Then it was on to the important stuff. Getting my last nine wing barrels up before sage grouse season opens a half-hour before sunrise tomorrow.

As I was heading out with my first load of barrels, I was surprised to see this.

Jesse's house is gone.

Someone has removed her tiny little home, and is building a real sized house there. Bet you could fit eight buildings the size of her home inside that new frame.

After setting out the first three barrels of the day, I stopped in at one of my warden's to deliver ten little plastic vials.

Sample containers for sage grouse blood, heart or kidneys. To check for West Nile virus, since it's been found in at least one grouse from my desert so far.

Yeah, I get to help hunters by gutting their birds if they haven't already when they come through my check station this weekend.

Hope I remember how.

Then it was home to refill the truck with the last of the barrels. And out on the north highway, where I spotted this pronghorn buck surveying his terrain (and harem) from atop a stabilized dune.

And yes, the hunting season is still open where he's standing. But obviously not of much importance to him, since he paid no mind to the idiot standing on top of a truck's toolbox to take this photo.

Pounded 31 fenceposts into the ground today. Some easily into soft sand, others through old asphalt. Pretty minor work load if I was actually a fence builder, but by the end of the day, I felt the pull in the abs.

If I did this every day, I would be in pretty good shape. Guess I should hire out to somebody to build fence in my free time.

After the last barrel was up, and after I cleared the boulders out of the county road so folks could drive up to it, it was still early in the evening. So the heeler sisters and I headed west, into the desert, to check for grouse hunters who might be setting up camp.

While the shotgun season for sage grouse doesn't start until tomorrow, I did meet a hunter who had already made his first kill of the year.

He's seven years old, and happy to be back out in the country. Although less than pleased by the few mosquitoes and moths that were buzzing around his perch.

His falconer reported his mother was a light-coloured gyrfalcon, and his father a dark peregrine.

Clearly takes after his mother.

After that camp, we continued west towards the divide. And found the last tree for at least 40 miles (if you're going south or west).

Quite a pleasant surprise out here in this monotone of grey and tan.

No one around the main watering hole in this part of the basin, except one antelope and a dozen feral horses.

And a benchmark, which we had to stop and check.

And yes, Rift, that's some of your feral horses there in the background. Came trotting over to see what in the world the two brightly coloured canids were doing with the biped.

Then it was homeward bound, where I grabbed the wife and drug her out to the edge of town to watch the sunset, but we missed most of it.

Then, before I had time to unload the day's supplies, a knock on the door.

A cop.

Apologizing for yet another nuisance animal call. But there's supposed to be a badger under the pavillion by the skating rink...

(There wasn't.)