Sunday afternoon, we were laying in bed after over-indulging in nacho chips (Left over from Saturday's concessions... and unlike the leftover pizza and pop, the cheese was free. All you had to do was agree to clean the cheese-filled crock pots in exchange for the melted cheese. Heelers loved cleaning the crockpots after the wife scooped out the cheese.), and the wife surfed onto the weather channel.

Onto the radar screen, showing a large storm mass just a few miles west of the Divide. And therefore, just a few miles west of town. And just a mile or two further west of the landfill, where I had planned to go that afternoon with a truck too-filled with thawing family detritus.

The radar mass was part of the "scattered snowstorms" they had promised us for the weekend. And the wind was from the west.

"Better get going," was all the wife said.

So, after finally draining the melted snow from the three cans full of dog droppings (accumulated because I forgot to empty them on the last dump run), and getting as many bags of trash into the Dodge as possible, the heeler sisters and I headed west on the interstate.

And there it was, a large, grey wall standing literally on the Divide, trying its best to push over onto the sunny eastern side.

Forty minutes later, as we were headed home after depositing our waste, filling the gas tank, and buying the obligatory double-cheeseburgers for the heelers, we were in snow. Got a couple inches on the ground now, with more predicted in the week.

Which is a good thing, since the chopper could be here as soon as Wednesday. Snow cover helps when you're trying to classify brown and tan deer from the air.

The other good news? One of my wardens has volunteered to do most of the flying. Kind of a payback for missing last year's surveys completely. I mean, all she did was give birth a couple weeks before the flights last year, so it's not like she had a valid excuse.

On another note, we naturally do not have any Christmas decorations up yet this year. You can never do that during the warm spells in November or December. That chore needs to be saved for when the world is white, cold, frozen and windy. But many other folks have already decorated.

And I suppose some of our local decorations are things that you might not see in other parts of the planet.