Triple entries now... been eventful couple of days.

Today's meeting didn't really go as planned.

First off, the guys who called the meeting at 0800 (in a town 127 miles away... left at 0546. At least I avoided all the construction. They hadn't starting their day yet.) couldn't be there. They got sucked into an emergency meeting about water.

The summer hasn't even started, and we're already running out of water. They had to decide:

Do we irrigate the hay fields, so that the elk have something to eat this winter, and thereby dry up the stream and either kill or expel all the trout?

Or do we leave enough water in the stream to keep the fish alive, and thereby not grow any winter feed for the thousands of elk that will move in during the winter?

There's not enough water to do both. And this is still only early June.

If the stream dies up, most of the trout will move downstream, and come back next year or whenever the water flows return. But the population will take a shock, and probably take several years to recover.

If the fields aren't full of standing grass, elk losses during the winter will be higher. But more significantly, most of the elk will probably move over onto nearby ranches and start eating their haystacks. That would not be good.

So, what would you do?

Our meeting finally began a quarter before 0900. But by 0900, several people on the other side of the conference room began coughing. Three of them, right in a row.

They were below the ventilation vent, if that's a clue.

Shortly the office manager came in to advise us that the new gal at the front desk had tried out the lighter she found in a drawer below the counter.

But it's not a lighter. It's a small can of pepper spray, kept there in case the gals need it for self defense.

So she just maced herself.

The wardens, who all had to be sprayed themselves in training, gave advice on first aid and cleanup.

And the efficient ventilation system is spreading the pepper spray around to the whole front half of the building. You can barely smell it, but the tickle low in the back of the throat is unavoidable. We adjourned and reconvened outside.

It was supposed to be snowing (yes, snowing!), but the sun was shining.

When the bosses had abandoned us at the beginning of the meeting, we sent a volunteer out for donuts. These arrived just as we exited the office.

So a nice morning break in the brisk, sunny outdoors with a bakery twist. With a close view of the Wind Rivers.

Not a bad start.

Couple good lines from the day:

Advice to one warden on how best to fix his decrepit personal truck: "Lift up the radiator cap, slide a new truck underneath it, and put the cap back on."

Comment on the inbred nature of the small, home community of one of the attendees: "It has a shallow gene pool."

On the elk/fish water situation? A compromise. They will irrigate half the hay meadow, and leave half the water in the stream. Then later switch to water the other half of the meadow. The elk will only get about half the grass they need, but at least the fish won't be decimated.

Hope it rains. The mountains are getting snow tonight, which will help.

Oh, and for a mile or so on the drive home... I got snowed upon.