Friday, September 18, 2009

Blog Moving...

Hello!

This blog has moved to the following address:

http://www.nancypatterson.org.

Hope you follow along!

Nancy

Thursday, September 3, 2009

And So It Begins....

I was sound asleep when the cries of a calf elk rang in my ears. "Oh great," I thought, "I know what I'm doing on rove: baby-sitting elk!" And then I heard it. A terrible, gutteral noise. The worse sound I have heard all summer (except for a little girl getting a splinter pulled out of her hand - yikes). The sound of.... could it be? A juvenile bull elk just trying to get his bugle on? Hm..... The sound was such a terrible bugle, I thought for sure it must only be a young bull just trying to call. I rolled over and out of bed and stumbled downstairs. Standing at the coffee maker, eyes half closed from sleep, I suddenly realized the terrible premonition, that horrid sound, was NOT a juvenile, but a full-fledged six-point MASSIVE BULL ELK! OH NO!

The bull had his head low to the ground, his antlers long and paralleled against his back. Any easy 800+ pound bull. He was chasing the cows and calves, attacking the poor spike bull, and acting like he owned the town. A bush stuck out from his antlers. With no one else to fight, what other choice did he have but to attack inanimate objects. He let out another rasping gutteral bugle. SERIOUSLY! UGH! What a TERRIBLE bugle! I could hear him panting as he trotted around rounding up his harem. What a disgrace... at least his rack was, well, pretty good, but the last point wasn't very pronounced.

Since then he's been acting like the head honcho of Mammoth, scaring the cows and calves into submission. What a bully. At least his bugle has gotten more dignified sounding. Just wait until the other bulls come to show him what a big old mean bull looks like. They'll put him to shame.