Oodles of elk

Don and I were walking Mr. Darcy the other evening when we turned around and saw an amazing site on a distant hillside: Elk. Lots of elk. Oodles of elk.

There wasn't any way to get them all in one photo, but I'm estimating there were 75 or 80 animals. Shortly after I took the above photo, something spooked them and they all started trotting downhill.

Unfortunately that put most of them behind an impenetrable barrier of trees, which hid their numbers even more.

I don't expect the elk to be around much longer. As the snow starts melting in the high country, they'll make their way further into the mountains for the summer.

We'll enjoy them while we can.

Elk in abundance

Don stepped onto the deck a couple days ago, then immediately poked his head back inside and said, "Grab your camera." Whenever he says that, I know it's something good. I grabbed my camera and this is what I saw.

Elk. Lots of elk. Elk in abundance.

They hung around that distant pasture all afternoon: Lounging, grazing, browsing, sunning.

Because they were moving in and out of sight, I couldn't get an exact head count, but there were at least 30.

By afternoon, pretty much the whole herd was laying in the wintery sunlight, chewing their cud.

Cool, eh?

The elk are back

Every winter in our area, the elk move from the high country to lower elevations. This means we suddenly start seeing them all over the place.

Interestingly, we've had an extraordinarily mild winter so far (a state of affairs that, frankly, is starting to worry us; will this correlate to a summer of wildfires?), so the elk have plenty of browse.

Coincidentally, we've also started noticing damage to our fencing.

Elk are massive animals – you don't really appreciate just how huge they are until you're up close to one – so it's no surprise that our modest fences get damaged by them.

It's one of those give-and-takes of country living. Elk are beautiful animals. Damaged fences is one of the prices we pay for enjoying their presence.

The magnificent photo you'll never get to see

I rarely leave home without my camera, tucked in my purse or pocket. However the other day when Don and I were on our way to town, I noticed the camera had a low battery, so I plugged it in to charge while we were away.

It was one of those, "What can possibly go wrong?" moments. Don always jokes that the one time I'll leave my camera at home, we'll see Bigfoot or something.

Well, I left my camera at home ... and we saw Bigfoot. Sort of.

We were driving along a beautiful stretch of river and passed a small sandbar. An antlered bull elk was on the sandbar, drinking from the river. The dappled sunlit forest was behind him and the sparkling river was before him. It was one of the most visually stunning images I've seen in years.

-----> INSERT PHOTO OF GORGEOUS BULL ELK DRINKING FROM RIVER <-----

And. I. Didn't. Have. My. Camera. With. Me.

Arrrggghhh. I've been kicking myself ever since. It would have been a magnificent shot.

Cue the obsessive carrying of my camera with me everywhere I go from now on.

Elking around

Elk have been hanging around our neighborhood a lot. A couple days ago in the very early morning, I glanced out the window and saw a small herd of about six animals in the field across the way.

They were often blocked by trees so I couldn't see exactly what was going on, but it seemed the herd was trotting back and forth across the field quite a bit. It may have had something to do with our neighbor's horse. Horses generally don't like elk.

After a few minutes of this, the herd came up to the fence line by the road just below our property.

One by one, they jumped the fence onto the road.

This put them right at the base of our lower driveway, and they started walking up toward the barn.

 

Two of the cows were already up the driveway...

...when the rest of the herd noticed me taking photos, and became concerned.

The two elk near the barn jumped fences and trotted off, while the lower elk moved down the road and disappeared from sight.

Just another day on the homestead.

Hoof prints in the snow

We've had elk hanging around lately, always a wonderful thing to see.

While walking Mr. Darcy the other day, one hoof print was clear in the snow. I put my foot right next to it to compare sizes.

Now compare it to the hoof print of a deer, and the scale of size difference between the two species becomes obvious.

Trust me, elk are BIG.

Snow whomp + power outage

If I've been silent for the last couple of days, it's because we finally got our power back on. It went out late Tuesday night after we got a snow whomp. It looks like winter arrived at last.

I mean, seriously. While the rest of the country already had their snow whomps, we were mild and snow-free. Sure, we had some chilly temps, but otherwise bare ground.

All that changed this past week. At first it was just a soft and picturesque snowfall of a couple inches.

The cows didn't seem overly fazed.

Most of the snow melted off over the next couple of days. And then, overnight, WHOMP.

Unsurprisingly, we lost power during this blitz. Out here, the power grid goes down for seemingly any reason: a heavy snowfall, a wind, a Tuesday. We knew this was likely to happen and had everything prepped just in case.

The cows were a little more fazed by this snowfall. We decided to keep them in the corral for immediate access to shelter. Filet, our stand-offish formerly-range-cow Angus, is due to calve sometime in the next month (probably less), and we don't want to be chasing down a new baby in deep snow on the far side of the pasture.

I took a yardstick into the yard and measured how much snow fell overnight.

Twelve and a half inches of new snow, and we've gotten more since.

It almost came over the tops of my boots.

The effect was very pretty...

...especially after the clouds cleared and it turned into a strikingly sunny day.

The snowfall was an opportunity for every man in the neighborhood to climb onto whatever equipment he had available, and work to clear the road. I counted at least six different neighbors on six different pieces of equipment, not counting Don's efforts.

I kept the bird feeder filled, since I knew the feathered ones would have a hard time finding food under such conditions.

The quail had to literally break trails in the snow.

Since Older Daughter's side of the house isn't heated during power outages, she let Frumpkin (her cat) into the main part of the house (making sure Lihn the parrot was safely in her cage, of course). Frumpkin was fascinated by the activity at the bird feeder. Cat TV.

Toward dusk, we took Mr. Darcy for his afternoon walk and noted a large herd of elk, at least 25 animals, spread across a neighbor's field.

We lit the oil lamps and settled in for an evening of reading. Frumpkin was perched on Older Daughter's lap, looking quite pleased with himself.

The power stayed off for forty-eight hours, through clear sunny days and very dark nights.

Don used the back blade on the tractor to plow the lower driveway.

Frumpkin stayed in the main part of the house, looking very cute...

...while Darcy looked very worried. "That cat isn't supposed to BE here."

The power came back on early Friday morning and life got back to normal. And the elk? Well, they went strolling by right below the house. Gorgeous.