I seem to be having a hard time writing here. Surfing for hours, just to avoid typing an entry.

Don't know why.

Like today. Nothing difficult or unpleasant about today. Spent most of it in a meeting. With 20-30 people (the number varied with the agenda items), most of whom I know. Most in good moods, I suspect because of the good rain we got yesterday.

The rancher I visited briefly with just before noon, who commented he wouldn't mind having that rain again.

I looked up at the perfectly clear, calm blue sky, and told him he looks to be disappointed.

By one-thirty the sky was black and it was raining again. And plopping down an inch or so of what one called "soft hail", and the wife described as "little snowballs, not hail or groppel."

More than one thanked me for "doing your work with the elk." (Also got that from both of the number Two bosses of our outfit at Monday's meeting, as well as the head of our civilian bosses.)

It was hard. But people know.

That helps.

Got grabbed by one of my neighbors in the parking lot. Wanting to know where the dead elk were. As if we had set up a morgue out there in the sagebrush.

Seems he and his kin have hopes of heading out to collect the ivories.

We kind of expected that. Some wardens suggested breaking those bugler teeth out, just so the collectors wouldn't be heading out country to try to collect them. But we didn't.

Told my neighbor he was waaaay late. That a woman from your state called two or three days after this first hit the papers, asking the same questions. Understand why, since ebay has them going for $10-$20 a pair.

But, near as I can tell, nobody's headed out there scavenging yet.

Showed him the worn map I carry with me, with most of the elk locations marked. The tiny little dots spread out almost evenly over 30-40 square miles of country.

Takes a lot of work to find elk when there's only 10 or so per square mile.

Trust me. We know.

His face kinda fell. Then he asked which dots were the bulls.

Like I would worry about that. Like I would tell him if I knew.

Did point out there are only five that we know of. And the wardens shot the antlers off those.

"Why?" he asks, with a stunned look.

To keep people like you from heading out to look for them.

But I suspect he and his family will be out this weekend, cutting teeth from smelly, rotting elk carcasses. He'll let me know if they find any still alive.

Had a gal at the meeting wanting to confirm the rumour that we found our dog.

Yep. Second person to ask in a week. Both knew where we lost her. And both were surprised I found her out there.

Other news... truck has new brakes. But while borrowing the wife's SUV, I noticed a horribly loud tapping noise.

Under the hood.

From the engine block.

Not a good thing.

Wife mentioned it had been doing that "a while."

So got the mechanic to listen when I picked up the outfit's rig. Turns out the wife had already called for an appointment, for next Tuesday.

She and I really need to find time to talk, rather than going through intermediaries.

But after listening, he and I decided.

The SUV's still there. And will be until next Tuesday, and maybe longer. He thinks it's a rocker arm, which would be the cheaper option. But to keep that from becoming something more serious, it will sit and wait.

With the rain, came lightning and thunder. Heeler sisters have been panicky and trying to hide. Masked one is still down with me, now.

But the rain also means mud. And no lekking tomorrow.

A second morning of sleeping in.

They're gonna get spoiled.

On the meeting... I never thought people would spend so much time, or get so riled up, about fish. And so concerned about people studying fish.

But they do.

When they're native species of fish, and you're in the Colorado River system.

We're also going to have University-type folks out and about for the next couple years studying "carbon sequestration."

Huh? You don't know what that means?

Well, neither did I.

Basically, they're looking at the rate that sagebrush takes in and fixes CO₂ from the atmosphere. Whether or not sagebrush is an effective carbon sink to reduce greenhouse gasses, and whether or not young sagebrush stands are more effective than older ones. ('Course, you have to burn old sagebrush to get young sagebrush, which releases all that fixed carbon back into the atmosphere as CO₂, so would you really gain anything?)

The point being, there will be small plastic, air-tight tents stuck out over sagebrush all through the countryside for the next couple years, and they thought it best to let folks know why (lest we start thinking 'alien abductions' again).

And finally, there was a fellow at the meeting who was constantly playing with his knife. Not a regular folding knife, but one of those modern, ergonomic things that looks like it was designed by a Klingon.

Which is no big deal.

But the hinge on it squeaked.

A real high, faint screech. Every time he opened it up, which was probably four to five times a minute.

For five hours.

One of the Fire guys, I think.

Took me a few minutes to figure out where the noise was coming from, and to make sure I wasn't getting tinnitis.

Then I started having fun watching others in the room. Saw at least two folks nearby lean down to check and fidgit with their watches, trying to make the near-digital whining go away.

One of them twice.

And, rather than closing with a link to a larger Grouse Pic, I thought I'd throw in a smaller, but interesting, grouse pic from yesterday.