While I was out doing something to my knee on an O' course a week and a half ago, that's not all I did. Several times while training on course this year with one or more "multi" controls (controls used more than once on a course), I have carelessly gone out of the control on the wrong leg. Therefore I've been designing nearly all my practice courses with loops through one or more controls to try to get that trained out of my system. It would be easy to think that since I designed the courses I was familiar enough with them to be sloppy at these controls in a way that I wouldn't be in a race on a course new to me, but it's not a good way to think. If you are making mistakes in training, there is every reason to think those mistakes will be repeated in races.
So on one of the multi controls I had on the above mentioned courses, I went in and out the first time (correctly!) and noticed nothing other than the control feature. The second time through, however, I noticed something else, just a short distance from the control. No idea how I missed it the first time through, but I did:
Today's task was to make a recovery and claim the find. The regulations vary from state to state, but what it meant here today was meeting a game warden (and his technician) out in the forest and taking him to the site so it could be examined and determined whether the death was fair or foul (poached.) His determination was that it looked like death from natural causes, so the antlers were mine to take.
Maybe it was not something for the squeamish. There were still hundreds (at least) of maggots crawling around on the carcass and an odor that can't really be described. But a nice find at any rate.
After that, headed out to do some mapping, during which I saw and killed one mosquito. I was expecting many. Then I ran at Happy Jack, which is where the "many" apparently had congregated. Standing still for even a few seconds was not a good idea. Even running, I was swatting mosquitoes the whole time.
Definitely summer.
Oh, yeah: as I was meeting up with the game warden, a thunderstorm passed through. Rain 25 out of 26 days now. Still 4 days left this month we could potentially stay dry!