I've got two antelope herds to count this spring. If all goes well, it'll take at least five long mornings of flight.

Monday's flight we canceled before sunrise, the sky completely overcast. The pilot rescheduled someone else's flight to get Tuesday morning available for me. And we actually got up in the air. For 24 minutes. Long enough to see that the count area was just as foggy as home, and the sun wasn't going to burn it off.

Wednesday he had another flight already booked.

Thursday dawned just as overcast as Monday. So uniformly dark that the pilot thought it was clear, cloudless skies as he peeked out his window so dark and early. His voice went from bright and cheery (ungodly cruel so early in the day) to sad and depressed in seconds when I explained the skies were not dark and clear. They were dark and cloudy, as I could see a sliver of orange in the far east. A direction not viewable from his windows.

But yeah, my stomach was happy it didn't have to fly.

Today, our fourth attempt at getting airborne to count antelope, found overcast skies again with a little drizzle coming down on the sidewalk and heelers out for their morning constitutional. When I called the pilot, he reported it was raining heavy in town.

"You should schedule more flights," he said.

"We need the moisture."

So, I would be lying if I said I wasn't happy to crawl back into bed these past two mornings. Relieved to be spending the next couple hours warm and dozing, rather than tense and puking. But the fact is, the counts still have to be flown. And if we had gotten up all four of those mornings, I would only have one more morning to go.

Now I still have five.

But not tomorrow. Nor Sunday. No alarm, no morning dread as I first peek outside the window.

It'll be nice.

Moonset over the Ferrises earlier this month.

A perfect morning to fly.