Another day on check station, another 60-some deer checked. With throats cut and retropharyngeal lymph nodes collected from about forty of them.

The crew of fish guys I had helping again this year changed today, midday. Two returning to home to Regional town, replaced by another, fresher pair.

I would love to say the fish guys just can't hack the long hours of check station duty for more than a day and a half, but the truth, I suspect, is that since they're collecting overtime pay for this extra work, they just want to spread the benefits around to everybody.

Found a deer with a minor infection of throat bots again.

Fortunately, it was cut by one of the new relief guys, and not the fellow who had such a frightened reaction last year.

He claims he still has nightmares about the experience.

Had three or four hunters with their first deer today, all quietly proud of having made good, clean one-shot kills. Now if they can just keep it up...

And all four fisheries helpers got to meet Chuck today, always a fun experience. And yeah, he chided me for the wife and I not coming by for any movies lately. I tried to explain about having a son in college, but he does, too, so he wasn't buying it. Now if he had managed to get Hero, we would have been there.

And all four fish guys also got to see our local pronghorn buck, once again passing by the check station, inside the highway right-of-way, on his way to scent mark the corners of his territory.

Crossing the cattle guards in his usual fashion.

And less than an hour later, he came back the same way, and spent the rest of the day feeding in the field between us and the city's water tank.

And finally, a shot of the little maskless heeler a fewdays ago. When she discovered exactly how cold rain can be when you don't have any hair on your shaved butt.