♫ I heard it through the cervine, that you soon would see a bovine. ♫

You know how a picture is worth a thousand words? Sit back and resign yourself, because I forgot my camera.

We snuck out near dusk, way past the Pumpkining Hour. On our way back we saw this guy:

I ripped this off, full of remorse, from the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, where you should go to verify all "facts" presented here.

I said WHOA! and he said WHOA! and all of us said some things we regret deeply and cannot repeat here. Then we saw three of his friends:

 
We've seen elk before. Just never so up-close and personal where everyone was shocked. They are the size of horses. Not those prissy Arabians.† Percherons, maybe, or draft horses, but without the slippers. Yeah, that's it, like a Clydesdale. That's why they're called "draft" horses.


So, Ed McMahon rode off on one of these things, and his rack was half as long as his body. The elk was nice, too. It occurred to me these guys are hanging out around the Duck every night. Blowing foggy elk breath on our windows. Bugling unspeakable desires and drinking cheap beer from cans while we choose our evening tea indoors. Then Annie reminded me Ed is gone.



I still get tickled raw by cows in the woods.



She's just as fierce as an elk. Nice rack, too. Someone has judged her to be approximately (~) a cow, but I fear they underestimated her.

We experienced two glorious minutes of rain early this morning. Annie woke up to say Tut tut, smells like dirt, then rolled over.



†Horse people: this is for entertainment purposes only. If your horse is sensitive to specist jokes, please do not allow him to read this post. Practice stable parenting.

Hello, cowboy.

Ever alert, especially while napping, I knew the yipees and ki-yays were coming from outside my head.

I changed immediately, out of my afternoon pajamas into my afternoon pants, to investigate. These caballeros de caballos, these señors de vaca, they are stuffed with lore.

I detected cowboy sign:

He rode off before the sunset. Unorthodox.

Annie has been confined to the barn for several days because of her bad back. I waited on her hoof and mouth for a few minutes, then I went out.

Ancient Pueblo irrigation canal.

The nation that lived in this area about a thousand years ago is commonly called Sinagua ("without water"), but that seems wrong. Lookit the water!

Montezuma's Well

Montezuma's Well from space.

Pueblo

Benchmark. Modern artifact.

My friend, Rob of Look Out, It's Evil!, introduced me to Krazy Kat once we got here. I've been reading the strips and I'm beginning to talk funny, Jinja Snep!