The emailed agenda had said the tour would start at 08:00.

Wow. Hadn't expected those office people to actually hit the road before six o'clock in the morning so they could be on the unit by eight.

Wasn't until Sunday night that it struck me that they probably meant they would start at 08:00, which means they wouldn't be down here in the field for a good two and a half hours after that.

As I explained my theory to the wife, she said "Well, you'd better be there at eight, just in case."

So I was.

They arrived a little after eleven.

So. I had some time to kill.

Spent part of it running back to town to check on the deer fawns. Which I did not find, but I wasn't going to trespass to see if they were there, either. But their mother certainly was not.

And most of two hours were spent coding my time for the first half of the month, a necessary evil. Made a little more pleasant by the constant chatter of Say's phoebes, kingbirds and mourning doves, and the rumble of the trains.

A quiet walk through the signature buildings, rereading old notations from the first half of the last century.

And a good fifteen minutes spent chatting with this fellow.

Who did not appreciate me making courtship calls so close to the shearing shed that he has claimed as his own.