They're done, they're done, they're done! They are done.

My three annual sage grouse reports are finally complete. Only a month or two late, but I attribute 100 percent of the delay onto the bosses that decided I had better things to do back in July, when I had set aside two weeks to work on these damn things. (The boss naturally does not see it that way. In his eyes, I have had months to work on these. And even after chewing me out for already working too many hours in September, he somehow thought I should have managed some extra, invisible hours to get this stuff done.)

But anyway, they're done. Narratives in the email today, tables and graphs all sent by snail mail (which ain't so snail, here) yesterday.

With revisions for a small omission sent today. And a second, multi-page revision sent for another small error going in tomorrow's mail.

Now, the coding of my wildlife observations is also backed up several months, because all spare time has been spent on the sage grouse reports. Absolutely none for coding. But anyone want to take bets on how few days it is before the boss complains about all that data being late, too?

Okay, okay. Enough grousing. The good news? I've already got over 180 hours in this month. Most I am allowed to work in the next two weeks is just over 70 hours. That's like, five hours a day! Or seven days off, depending on how you spread it out.

So, my plans for my new freedom?

Well. first thing tomorrow, I hope to go dig through a bunch of stinky, rotting, dead deer heads to extract some lymph glands.

Mmmm. Fun!

Really. It will be fun after all these long, late hours of desk work. Maggots or not. Take stinky deer heads over writing reports almost any day.

Then, rather than sitting along a highway like I should on the first Saturday of a deer season, the wife and I will be headed to Central City to watch youngest son in his final high school marching band performance. While maybe throwing in a couple benchmarks on the drive up. And a trip to a mall. And lunch at the Flaming Wok.

And dinner at Botticelli's.

Oh, joy!