A Beautiful Day

Today was an incredibly beautiful day. Starting with an amazing sunrise and ending with Em and I watching a nearly 400 head herd of elk in the meadow behind the house as the sun slipped behind the mountain. The sunrises lately have been so colorful, just amazingly beautiful.

I candled a few more eggs, all seem to be developing. Rachel came today, I showed her the developing chicks. She really wanted to pet one of them, um, kind of impossible at this point and also a bit messy I’d suppose.

Washing a few pans at the kitchen sink late this morning, I noticed some elk up in the meadow behind our house. There were about 35-40 that I could see. I got the binoculars and went upstairs for a better view. I kept an eye on them off and on all day as they made their way down the draw and toward the house. At about 4:00 I noticed they were just 100 yards or so behind us and talked Em into hiking up onto the boulder behind the house to take a look. We brought the camera and the binoculars.

As we got up near the top of the ridge, our view was expanded and we realized the extent of the herd. At one point I counted 364, a good mix of cows and bulls. One in particular had an enormous rack. He must have weighed 1000-1200 lbs. Yum, he would have made some good elk burgers.

They were aware of our presence, but just kept a cautious eye on us, looking up from their grazing every now and then as they made their way further down the draw past our granite perch. Early tomorrow I plan to drag Steve up to see them; hopefully they have bedded down for the night not too far away.

As the sun slipped behind our peak and dusk began to creep upon us we headed back down to the house. The sunset was just as breathtaking as the sunrise; a beautiful end to a truly wonderful day.

Sunrise

Em on the rock

Our view of the elk

Another view of the elk. All the little dots in the background are elk too. This picture represents about 1/5 of the herd.

Our view to the south

Beautiful sunset

Another picture of the sunset from the front porch. We've just got a little bit of snow. Although a big storm is supposed to hit tomorrow night or Sunday.