The Elk Have Arrived!

Yesterday afternoon our neighbor knocked on our door.  He wanted to tell us that he had seen elk prints in the mud and that they had been eating the apples in his orchard.  He asked us to keep an eye out for them and to call him if we saw anything (he got an elk tag this year...)

Late last night, Bea was barking and barking and barking.  Which isn't unusual given all the critters that live around our house.  Brian was curious to see what Bea was barking at so he grabbed the spotlight and pointed it out at the pasture behind our house.  We immediately saw the green reflection from one, then two, then hundreds of animals' eyes!  The elk herd was in our neighbor's pasture, just in front of the pear orchard.  And there were so many of them!  There must have been a hundred, all frozen to their spot, staring back at us.  It really was incredible.

I unfortunately do not have any pictures to post of the event (we tried to take a few but it was too dark to show anything).  We are hoping the elk reappear again during the day so we can appreciate them in the daylight...