I really need to stop writing that I'm tired, and there's no time for a proper entry... it's strutting season, so gee, duh.

Just woke up from a two-hour nap, and I hope to be back there in just a few minutes. So. Today.

Lek surveys in the morning. Overslept again (wife says it is the new bed, too hard to get out of), so the sisters and I cheated and went on one of the short and quick lek routes close to town that I usually save for a Sunday. Or a day when I've overslept.

Get to park on top of the Divide, look out on that same showbank to the south, and try to spot grouse two to four miles away with a spotting scope mounted on a truck shaking in the wind.

Ten cocks on the first lek, none on the second, and ten on the third.

Perfect morning. Cold, but not a cloud in the sky. At least two men logging in with dispatch on the radio commented on what a perfect morning it was, with her confirming each time.

It's Easter-time, she said.

Is that coming up?

Then, home. Read the papers, catch up on and answer emails (the outfit's, not yours, as you well know), and dig out and review the hunter safety slide talk.

Then, off to the Middle School to give the standard hunter safety talk. Which went well. A slightly rowdy crowd, but geeez, these kids were sharp. Knew answers to most of my questions like they'd been through it all before. Except for the age of the little aspen tree. Only one was close on that.

And I had my bag of lichen. Spent the last ten to fifteen minutes talking about the elk being poisoned by lichen. Again, excellent questions, a really adept and knowledgable crew.

Then it was off to run around town trying to find a replacement bulb for an antique 1980s technology slide projector. And failing. (After calling the wife to see what flavor of latte she would like for an afternoon treat, only to get her voicemail, and hanging up on it. That upsets her, but I still do it.) Left the empty box from my spare bulb with one fellow who thought he could find and order one somewhere. Probably about $40.

Did point out to the boss that we need to upgrade to a laptop and computer screen projector, but he prefers the $40 pricetag for a bulb to the thousands it would take for modern technology.

Yeah, I knew.

That's why I ordered two.

Reason the bosses were in town was because of our annual open house to cuss and discuss our proposals for this fall's hunts. As expected, we had great attendance (everything is relative... that means maybe thirty people stopped by in the three hours). Many, if not most, wanting mainly to discuss the dying elk incident.

Very first guy in the door ended up at my spot on the table. Remarking about how hard it must have been to do what we did with the elk. This was a fellow who was working for the railroad twenty years ago, and remembers the winter the game warden and I had to snowmobile (on one machine) for miles out onto the scenes where trains had hit 60 to 100 antelope at a whack. Walking the tracks to dispatch the survivors with broken backs and missing limbs.

It was the time this man and I first met.

Yeah, this was harder.

"I don't know how you could do that without crying your eyes out," he said.

How I wanted to ask him what makes him think we didn't.

But I didn't. Must maintain image, you know.

The wife stopped by the open house after work, since we were across the street from her building. As she explained to the boss (jab, jab, poke, poke) it's the only time she and I get to sit and visit. She spent as much time visiting with him, however, and he may now have the ammunition and advice he needs to convince his wife it is time to replace their 1980s technology waterbed with a new pillowtop.

She should ask for a commission, wherever they end up buying one.

Yeah, she likes our new bed.

Main news from her visit? No news on the Explorer, which was left at the shop last week for the apparent loose rocker arm. The knocking problem in the new engine they put in last summer (under warranty still), supposedly relatively easy to fix.

No news is bad news. Apparently it wasn't so easy to fix.

As the wife had anticipated, our crew went out to dinner after the meeting. Visiting with out-of-town folks we haven't seen in some time (and another we just saw not so long ago, helping us find elk from an ATV). Listening to horror stories of horse packing trips from hell.

The fellow who was advised by his hunting partner to let the mule lead when they got lost late at night. Only to lean out, hanging from a tree branch using his pocket miniMag (the only light they had), to find the mule leading them directly to the missing trail.

Directly over a hundred-foot cliff.

But the mule was right. The trail was right there at the bottom.

And the fellow who had promised his new wife that he would get the horses shod before their trip into the Yellowstone wilderness.

And did not.

Their hunting partner followed along behind them, and recovered the shoes their horses threw in the trail. Had to reshoe the horses with rocks, straightening old nails on other rocks to be reused, or begging nails from other packers on the route. The crankier of the horses had to be tied to trees, front and back legs, to get a shoe back on.

By the time they got back out, two weeks later, all of the horses were reshod. On all four hooves (which had not been properly filed down, of course, having no file), but with maybe only four nails per hoof.

And they had a couple shoes extra.

And yeah, they're still married. To each other.

Main point of the dinner discussion?

The big, big 50-year anniversary reunion at the outfit's cabin built far back in the Yellowstone wilderness. Coming up summer after this one. If I want to go, I got a year to get horses and a whole ton of horse packing experience.

Guess I'll miss that one.

And now, to bed.