First the past shall be dealt with..
On Saturday, mum and Beckers and I decided we wanted to go to Laurance Lake. To see the scenery and whatnot. We learned by reading the paper en route that peoples were enjoying such pasttimes as hockey and ice skating up there too, which'd be kinda niftay to behold. Well, I'm driving along and it's pretty snowy..like several feet up there but the road's ok, and down comes a little red car. I pull over, innocently. When I try to go again, I am totally stuck. It wasn't a big deal to begin with, no, for I was only in six inches of snow. But the harder we tried to escape, the more the snowbank/ditch sucked us in. We ended up calling Tim's brother, Scott, to help us out. Long story short (we were stuck for a good two hours), several good samaritans and Scott managed to get us unstuck, and several more cars got stuck in the process. My brakeline got broken, which caused mum to bump into Scott's truck and destroy one of my foglights, and we managed to make it to his house using the emergency brake at stop signs. There, Linda conversed and made tea for us. Tim ended up coming by and took us all home. That night mum, with little assistance from me, constructed four pies for our rescuers. The dough turned out hellishly sticky, but in the end, they got baked.

The next day we delivered pies and visited half the known citizens in this valley. I did get to see some cool dogs though, which made the effort to deliver a pie to a random rescuer worth it. One was a freaking adorable shepherd mix, and then there was a black lab that "escorted" us down the driveway. It was a decent day.

So today, at like 7:30 in the morning, mum wakes me up saying there're elk in the orchard. Ah, I have a conveniently located bed, right by the window. I unfold the blinds and there are several huge elk standing right out in front of the house in the orchard. At first we only saw about six, but then we notice that there were more amongst the gray trees. I suspected that the lighter colored one nearest to the bags of lime was a bull. Tim got the binoculars and said it was either a spike or forked horn. She wakes Becky up too so we're all in my room watching. Tim moved out to the living room (don't know why I didn't-would've been a better view). I took a few poor quality photos before they were spooked by something and then they all headed towards the canal. One of the last ones we see is a huge bull - probably a five point - the first large bull I've seen around here. It was freaking awesome. I videoclipped about five seconds of them running through the orchard. I think the herd is comprised of about 25..it was quite impressive. Only the second time we've seen them in the orchard during daylight.

After watching TV, Becky and I bundled up for a trackin' expedition. We followed the now-covered tracks across the canal and up into the thicket, where I found my first deer antler. We'd gone maybe a half mile and have come across several saplings ravaged by the bull's antlers as well as numerous clumps of fur shed on branches when I hear a very distinct sound..a sort of whistling, not bugling, that I've heard before. I had no idea the elk were still in such close proximity, but they definitely were. We stopped and listened and could hear their vocalizations and now and then some branches breaking. They seemed to be hanging out in the area, not on the move. I think the vocalizations are just to keep track of where they are in relation to the rest of the herd. It was freezing rain and would be getting dark soon, and Becky headed down reluctantly. I stayed to listen. Another fifteen minutes passed before I heard them again. A few "bleats" and then the sound of the herd moving at once. They ran below me, but they were far enough away and the brush was thick enough so that I didn't see them. After a while I decided it'd be best to head down, due to freaking cold conditions and darkness. I headed straight down 'cause I knew they'd passed and didn't want to totally scare them. It was pretty excitin'.

Well, I'm going to leave ya'll with some snippets from last night's TV viewing...

"He really does like, consume people."
-Becky, about a guy making out with women on Elimidate

"Will Mike choose Tracy, or the egg donor?"
-Host of Elimidate

"Oh, someone's gonna get elimidated. Oh, no, someone's gonna have to watch the "bod" commercial for the 50th time."
-Becky, concerning false dramatic pause and subsequent commercial break

"He's groovin' to that windchime"
-Becky, concerning "Third Eye" commercial

"She just craves that fresh water like a hippie craves a windchime."
-Me, concerning Prissy and her faucet habit