The first person at yesterday's check station was actually there before I was. A trucker, bedded down for the night on the historic marker pullout that I use just north of town. By the time I was parked and getting my CWD sampling gear arranged, he had roused.

A former resident of our state, now working out of Winter Haven, FL. One of the few places in that state that I have visited, so we got to chat some about it, and about the many miles in between.

And how he misses the bitter cold, fall winds like we were having this morning. He waved when he left.

I turned my tailgate into a laboratory bench, doing my best to shelter and batten everything down from the west wind.

On the left you have your standard storage tub, which held most the rest of the sampling gear, and has several dozen sample kits. Right next to it is the little bottle of green antibacteria hand soap. Next to two scalpel handles ($30+ each) and two surgical tongs (Also expensive... primary distinction between these and any other tongs is the precisely meshing little teeth on the ends. Hard to keep clean.)

To the right is my contribution to this equipment... and old, abused toothbrush. All the vet staff mentioned (and practiced) using the teeth on the tongs to try to keep the tongs and scalpel handles clean. It occurred to me an old toothbrush might work better, and it did.

Standard equipment in our region's kits now.

Next to the surgical tools is the plastic bottle of the carcinogenic, hallucinogenic and mutagenic sterilant fluid called "LPh". Otherwise known as "low Ph", otherwise known as "almost acid". For soaking and sterilizing the tongs and scalpel handles between samples.

The stuff that I bathed my hands in as I cleaned scalpels and tongs when the south deer seasons opened at the beginning of the month. Skin got horribly cracked, dry and hard (to the point the wife noticed), but not much else. If fingers drop off next month, we'll know why.

Behind the bottle is the box of surgical gloves.

After a day of using these, I have got to acclaim that they are a wonderful invention. My hands were almost never bloody all day, my food tasted like, well, food, instead of deer blood, and the skin was certainly softer without cracks.

Heelers were disappointed at the lack of smells on my hands whenever I got back into the truck, however.

To the left of the gloves is the box of scalpel blades, each individually wrapped. Technically called "Poultry" blades on the box. But I guess okay for using on deer. A little tricky to snap on and off the handles. At least one administrator sliced himself to the bone in the process at one CWD station. So far, I'm doing okay.

The little red container is called a "Sharp's" container. A standard laboratory device for storing, well, sharp things. For the used scalpel blades.

Not a good idea. They're made to be used, until full, on a lab bench somewhere, then snapped shut and thrown away. Not for opening and closing several times a week. General concensus by all users I've met is that empty water bottles work better. But the thing's here, and has no other use, so I use it.

Then there's the little blue cooler, for keeping samples cool (duh). It's ours, not the outfit's, so don't tell the wife.

All this so that I can fill tiny little plastic snap-shut cases with tiny little retropharyngeal lymph glands.

Each with its own detailed hunter survey card, which asks a lot more than we really need to know (like social security number... why would we need to know that?). By the end of the day, I had eight little samples in our family's cooler.

And I wanted to get into the events and people of the day, but this is long, and I'm hungry. Maybe later.