Music of early fall

We heard strange animal noises in the night, different than the usual coyotes or owls. I walked alone this morning (with spray & camera) and when I made it up to the hill above our house, I heard it. AN ELK BUGLING! Clearly it was elk noises in the night moving back down. They were around our house just like the deer for the first 6 weeks we were here, but by mid July had disappeared for higher ground. Yes, I know, we're pretty high here, evidently not high enough for elk. If you haven't heard it, the bugling is not like anything you will ever experience. Amazing sound. It's the call for fall mating, so here we are with another sign of true fall almost upon us. The male bulls can have up to 60 cows (female elk) in their harem. Really, they are called harems. No female equality here... This is an July picture of a elk cow - I have nothing recent, but hopefully soon I will.

I took a picture of a female grouse on my walk also. We see grouse frequently and have watched a lot of babies grow up. They are very slow moving birds and certain kinds are protected, I can see why - they would be very easy to hunt.

And finally, Mark has his twenty year old chainsaw back after weeks from the odd repair man in town. It wasn't supposed to take long to tune it up, but Mark had to make three trips before getting it back. Hard to say how this man stays in business. He doesn't appear to know how to converse, as in "Hello" or "Can I help you?" or "Your repair is finished". Yup and no were mostly words of choice. Not complaining really, at the end, he said he didn't do much to it anyway, so no charge. Personally I think he didn't want any more visits from Mark. Back home Mark jumped right in on the long project of sawing up the fallen trees that are down in the woods. It will take forever to get through it all, but in the meantime we'll have firewood for years.