Our stray elk

I have a semi-wild back yard that adjoins a large empty lot which extends to the other side of the block. My back yard has fruit trees and wildflowers and weeds and grass. I keep most of it watered and mowed, but not with the same attention I give to the front lawn (which is kept as lawn to add to the overall neatness of the neighborhood).

The back yard has been my experiment center. We moved here during the winter, so this was our first growing season. The previous tenants had children who were into digging holes and building mounds, so I have done some shoveling, evening things out a bit. These children, or somebody at least, was also into burying kitchen knives. I've lost track of how many knives and ball point pens I've dug out of the dirt. (Yinga.) On a happier note, I scattered some wildflower seed (most of which didn't grow), and planted hollyhocks (which are holding their own). But mostly I've been observing, seeing what comes up that I'd like to keep, seeing what I feel needs to go. Mostly, sad to say, I have common mallow and bindweed and dandelions plus annual grasses of various sorts, but there have been some rare treats, including a little alpine-looking flower I'd only seen before up in the mountains. I don't know its name, but I was careful to not mow there until after it had gone to seed. I have a chronic and possibly incurable case of gardener's optimism...

As for fauna, we've had neighborhood cats and dogs, but also owls and songbirds and skunks and a raccoon and several mule deer. Of late, we've had "sign" that I couldn't identify. I've been researching, but it never occurred to me to look up elk sign. Whoever heard of an elk here in town? But yesterday a deputy sheriff met my husband at the gas station, and wanted to make sure that we knew that an elk had been seen a couple or three times lately in our back yard. The fish and game people had checked it out, he said, and it was a young bull, two spikes on its antlers, with a hurt front leg, but not hurt bad enough to put down.

I've learned to keep my guard up when I go outside, what with skunk and deer sharing the territory, but an elk is something else again. I love seeing elk in the wild, and I don't mind temporarily sharing my yard with one as long as it's not aggressive and we both see each other in plenty of time to avoid encounters. Elk, you understand, are not safe to tangle with. They are big and know how to hurt you. Still, overall, I was excited. Yesterday I kept sneaking peeks out the window. Last night I couldn't sleep anyway (I hurt my back and shoulder the other day, among other things), so I cheered myself up by walking around looking out all the windows, hoping for a glimpse of my newly identified mystery guest.

Today a cop told my husband that last night an elk was hit by an RV on the same road that goes alongside our empty lot, but down the road a ways. The people are OK but the elk's leg was broken, and the police put it down...

We don't know for sure yet that it's our elk. But as far as we know there was only one elk limping around our neighborhood. Rats. I had mixed feelings about having something that large and potentially dangerous hanging around. But, doggone it, rats.

You can find out more about living with elk here, on a website provided by the State of Washington.