Yesterday Dianne was issued several federal citations for hauling her 1) brandless disease carrying domestic sheep out to 2) bighorn habitat on Public Land just over the border without a 3) 'permit'.  All so she and eight or nine  "friends" could use their dogs to move these illegal browsing vehicles around, tromping the sensitive BLM grazing allotment vegetation, shitting plague and ruin, spreading non-native spores far and wide. I know I've said it before: Dianne is like the dark johnny appleseed of endangered species death. 

The Ranger was a dick, it's true.  I used to work with him, years ago, but all the joking and chest thumping in the world wasn't getting thru that thick coating of Rules and Regulation; the power intoxicant of Authority over a group of women and their dogs.  Plus some sheep.  

I swear he used to have a good sense of humor.  Or maybe it was that he used to have a mustache. I confuse these things.

Susan sang "This land is Your Land…" over and over.  She asked him if he "enjoyed" his job.

"Most days," he said.  He kept one enthusiastic hand near his federal firearm.  Job satisifaction bonus if he had reason to shoot a bitch for some final Trespass Against The Land.  I was probably close with the thumping.  It was gentle, though.  Of course he was wearing a thump-proof vest.

He said, "I know you."

In the end Dianne asked the Ranger why it wasn't posted that one couldn't bring their own livestock to BLM land and let them out for awhile, with some dogs, only to drive home before the day ended.  Sort of like a 4-H picnic.

"How are you supposed to know you can't do this if its not posted anywhere?" she asked.

"We can't post signs for everything," Ranger Dick said. 

I don't know why not. We pay people to do less helpful shit.