The sky up here fascinates me. It's constantly changing. From not a cloud in the sky to dramatic displays.

No matter what time of day it is. 

This year we've had more birds of prey than other birds except the ever present Steller's jays. We've seen kestrels flying over our meadow and posing on trees near the bird feeder looking for an easy chippie snatch. So far I've not seen them be successful. The other morning this beautiful Merlin showed up and shook up the whole bird neighborhood. No one wanted him around. Look at those claws!

He would come swooping in very low -- below the bird feeder -- scattering jays and chippies alike. He was heckling the jays and chasing them around and around. This beautiful Flicker got into the act too and engaged in mid-air battle a few times. I was pretty impressed with his maneouvers. Amazing.

All for my viewing pleasure with my morning coffee, right outside my dining room window. Who needs television?

A portent of things to come?

Yesterday was a very strange day weather-wise. We knew to expect rain, but for most of the day all we got were threatening, overcast skies. It finally did rain around 3:30 p.m. and it rained pretty hard. We got a third of an inch of rain.

Then the sun came out.

And we were treated by yet another beautiful rainbow.

It was so nice that we took a walk after dinner. Everthing was sparkly clean.

As we came back up the hill from our walk, we noticed that Bull Mountain was disappearing from view behind a fog bank. Creepy, really.

We came back in and sat out on the porch for a while just listening to the silence. We came inside and started a fire (the first one of the stay) in the big fireplace and prepared to watch a movie. When I turned around to look outside, gray tendrils of fog were making their way through the trees and in seconds we were surrounded in a cloud. I have never seen fog so thick up here before. It stuck around until we went to bed. Heavy, thick, wet fog. Everything was dripping.

At one o'clock in the morning we were rudely awakened with no warning by what sounded like a freight train coming through the cabin. I jolted upright in bed and said to RIck "what the ??" At first we thought it was just really heavy rain. The dogs were freaking out. Hailey was shaking and Bella jumped up on the bed. Rick got up and turned on the outside light to see that it was hailing and big clumps of ice were sliding off the roof. Have you ever heard a downpour of pellet-sized hail on a metal roof? Let me tell you from experience -- it's LOUD! It continued its onslaught for about ten minutes, then the storm let out a big flash of lightning and a big boom of thunder and it let up. A few more blindingly bright (even with curtains closed) flashes of lightning and booming claps of thunder and the storm rolled on to annoy others in its path.

This morning there was still some hail left that had come off the roof.

The weather station said we got just over a quarter of an inch of hail in ten mintues' time.

Weather in the high country is always interesting!

Bull elk on our adjoining property.

Tuesday morning started out like any other morning. I sat by the table with my mug of coffee and admired the strange light outside. There were dark clouds to the west while the sun was coming up in the east. Kind of ominous looking but beautiful at the same time. The day before we had a rainy day that resulted in nearly 1.25 inches of rain, pretty rare for up here. The wood stove kept us cozy all day while we put the first puzzle together of the visit. 

As I sat there gazing out at our newly cleaned up meadow watching the sun rising higher and higher, I noticed the light was just starting to hit an aspen in the forest, lighting it up like a golden torch. I went to get my camera and when I next looked out I saw two animals that I at first thought were deer and then realized they were elk and let out a big gasp. I excitedly told Rick we had elk in our meadow -- finally!

At first there were only a few, then more kept coming out of the forest. (The forest by the way we named the Ewok Forest because of all the tall straight pines --now of which most are dead. If you are a fan of Star Wars you will understand the name as a great chase scene took place in such a forest.) Within a few minutes the meadow looked like this.

All cow elk and babies. We knew Mr. Bull Elk could not be far off and then we heard him bugle. My excitment went off the charts! Bull, or male elk, only bugle during their rut (mating season) in the fall. We've heard a lot of bugling this year. It's a very odd sound, and if you don't know what it sounds like, listen here. We didn't have long to wait until Mr. Bull made his grand appearance. 

What a beautiful bull! It almost seemed like he was posing for us but I think he was really keeping his eye on us. Just look at the rack of antlers! We later learned that since he has seven points (counting his antler points on one side) his is considered a "royal." And royal he is indeed. Just look at the spread of his antlers.

The little ones were so cute.

Here is what it looked like looking out the dining room window.

They stayed and ate grass, nibbled on baby aspens (darn!) for a good twenty mintues or. Then, they spooked for some reason and took off at a run with even more coming out of the forest to join them. It looked like they had gone out to the main road and were headed (possibly) past our driveway. So, with bathrobe and slippers flapping, I headed down the driveway. I was not sorry I did. This is what I saw.

And here I am standing behind our fence at the beginning of our driveway looking out to our adjoing piece of land to give you some idea how close they were.

Then I finally got the shot you see at the very beginnig of this post. You can see the dusting of snow on the mountains behind him. 

It was a magical, almost unreal experience to see them that close and probably one we might never have the pleasure to experience again. I leave you with his last bugle before they headed out over the hill.

She's gone country, look at them boots
She's gone country, back to her roots
She's gone country, a new kind of suit
She's gone country, here she comes

--Alan Jackson

'Nuff said!