Sage grouse season opens Friday, which left Wednesday and Thursday to put up my 17 wing barrels. Which should actually be only 15 barrels, with the two already set up for blue grouse at the beginning of the month, but I forgot. Kinda busy, I guess. Setting up the 17 barrels is usually a 16 hour job, so that works out okay.

'Course, we've got an elk flight scheduled for first thing Thursday, but that just means Thursday will be another long day.

Then the pilot's wife calls Monday. Can we fly later on Thursday?

Well, I guess. But I'm none too happy about it. Normally I make two short runs, and then one really long one, to get my barrels up.

The long run happens to take me past the rattlesnake den.

And I can't do the long run on Wednesday, since I've an open house about the upcoming highway reconstruction that I need to get to between five and seven. With Thursday split in half by an elk flight, I'll have to make four short runs, and no long one.

Late this morning, I try the first short run of three barrels. Which is really short, but takes an extra hour or so because of the large thunderstorms that roll in.

Standing along an open roadway holding 10-15 pounds of iron in your hands to pound six-foot steel posts into the ground is probably not a wise idea when lightning is dancing around. So, I sit and wait. The heelers none too happy about the boomb-a-looms. Storms are big enough we come home for lunch before heading back out to set the third barrel.

Now it's close to three o'clock. I load up five barrels for the next short route and, on the off chance there's time, I throw in a sixth barrel that goes in 32 miles past the last of the five.

As I cruise along the highway at milepost 18, two barrels already in the ground, I start some mental calculations. To get to the sixth and farthest barrel in time to turn around and get back to town before seven o'clock, I've got to be done with the fifth barrel by five o'clock at the latest.

I ain't gonna make it. Which adds a couple hours to tomorrow's work just to take care of number six.

But, if I skip barrels three, four and five, and just do number six, I'll still make my meeting. And picking up those three barrels I skipped will only add one hour to tomorrow's schedule. Problem is, the snakes are between five and six, and if I do six tonight, there's no time at all to visit the rattlers. And no excuse to drive by for a visit tomorrow.

Getting six done today means saving an hour tomorrow, but also means no snakes.

Barrel three goes in at milepost 23. I don't decide what to do until I actually see the mile marker. And keep on going, towards barrel six.

Now, we've all heard the psychology theories about the id, ego and superego. And it's not often that two of those consciousnesses actually get to meet. But not a half mile after my superego made the noble decision to forego fun in order to get work done more efficiently, there was a scream in my brain.

"But I wanta see snaaakes!

And before the superego could react, the truck was pulled onto a sideroad, waiting for traffic to thin so's we could turn around.

And go to milepost 23. For barrels three, four and five.

Which we did.

The good news from the meeting?

The folks at the highway department have already anticipated most my needs. They're not going to tear out the graveled spot I use for my check station, and may even pave it for me. They're going to level off the hump just before the junction where I have watched several near collisions (it's perfectly safe for most trucks, but people in low-profile cars can't see the junction ahead). And they plan on using the more antelope-friendly 4-wire fence. Despite one rancher friend's request for woven wire (you may remember him from Ginger's story).

But they weren't prepared for my third question...

How we gonna handle my check station during construction?

The man's eyes got wide. They hadn't thought of that.

I mean, peak rush during deer season, and I've got thirty to eighty trucks an hour coming through. If their pilot car only makes them wait ten minutes, that's still 5-12 trucks at a time, some with camp trailers. And they all gotta stop at my station, which means I'll need a lot more parking space than I got now. In the middle of a construction zone. And there's no way I'll be done with all of them before the next fleet comes in following the pilot car ten minutes later.

We'll be backed up in the construction zone in no time.

And the hunters will be pissed.

And they all got guns.

He says he'll put it on the contract that the construction company will have to accommodate my station, from mid-September through the end of October when they shut down for the year (2007). But he didn't say how the contractors will manage to do that.

Oh, yeah. The pilot called after dinner. His morning flight canceled.

Can we fly first thing tomorrow?