If I haven't told you, I've been on vacation all week.

No, not that we have anything to do, or any place to go. The wife's still working, as is youngest son. It's just that I am once again at that point where I have earned so much leave time that if I don't take it, I'll lose it at the end of the year.

So I'm on leave.

So you might ask, Grouse, what do you do on your day off?

Well, I drove out and cut the lymph nodes out of the necks of two deer shmucked on the interstate.

Not together, mind you. No, these two bucks were 21 miles apart.

And not that it was simple, seeing as how the first was hardly recognizable as a deer, much less figuring out where the neck used to be. Finding lymph tissue in that one took some anatomical knowledge, I tell you.

And after that, I spent a couple hours in a federal office with one of their biologists, trying to figure out which sage grouse leks would be best to monitor in the gas fields.

So we would know when gas development was being a problem for the birds.

Not that that would change anything. But at least we would know...

Now, you might be wondering...

How do I tell the difference between the days I work, and the days I have off?

And it's fairly easy.

On my days off, I don't do email.

Usually.