Elk and the magic spring

Sun and blue sky back along with Mark. His new commuting schedule to Detroit every other week is something I'm definitely not used to yet. We'll see how it all evolves...
He missed the massive elk sighting two days ago. They stayed on the next hill over all day and more kept streaming out of the woods as the hours went by, for a grand total of 72. Never seen so many all together.I didn't even drive to get the mail so as not to disturb them. (We have to drive a mile to our mailbox for those who don't know) Well, how important could that mail be anyway - bills, advertisements, certainly no letters. Who does that anymore? Well, come to think of it, I do have a friend who writes me every once in a while - long letters too. It's a lost art for most.
Anyway, took a lot of photos of the elk, but still couldn't quite get the whole scope. Where are they now? We've only seen a few since then. Maybe finding their hidden places to have those babies. Still a couple weeks away for that if last year is any indication.

I forgot to mention the grouse in my previous wildlife sightings. There are a whole group of them up the hill in the woods and this little fellow strutted in front of me for quite a distance to lead me away from his nest.  Love his fake "eye".

We went to fill up containers at the magic spring. Boy, is it running full blast. Mark got nicely wet along with the filling. It's fabulous to have that pure mountain spring water available all year. Fountain of youth maybe - I'm game. We tried to go further down the road to the end (Ohio Pass) which we knew was still closed, but didn't even get a half mile. Road still covered in snow. The pass opened late last summer; they don't clear it, just let nature do its thing, so can't imagine how late it will be this year, given the record snowfall that came down in April.
Have put up one hummingbird feeder - zero so far. They were here last year at this point hmmm....