Our farm is home to many deer and is part of the range used by 150 head of elk.  On fall evenings 25-30 head of deer can be counted in the field just below the house.  After dark the herd moves into the yard and garden where they eat wasted vegetables, raspberry leaves, and fallen fruit.  On moonlight nights one can sit in the darkened living room and watch the deer browse and play in the yard.  Since they're there every night, Annie generally ignores them or sleeps through their silent presence.  We generally tolerate them, too, because they're pretty and graceful and are just a part of living here.  They don't do much damage, except when one makes a summer visit and nips off all the kohlrabi plants.

Elk are more troublesome than deer.  Deer are light and agile.  They effortlessly hop over fences.  Elk are big and clumsy.  They try to leap fences, but generally land on top or just plow right through.  Part of our spring work each year is to repair the elk-damaged fences.

Elk are more wary than deer and try to stay away from any human habitations.  That trait makes our co-existence with them possible.  We learned long ago that alfalfa planted between our house and the woods was elk pasture.  They ate it, lay in it, and wallowed around in it until it was hardly harvestable.  Alfalfa planted below our house, however, was left alone simply because the elk would have to pass our house to get to it.  Our hay ground is, therefore, the lower fields.

The only time elk can be seen in the lower fields is on the opening day of elk season.  On that day, before it's light, the herd will be grazing the neighbor's alfalfa fields a mile below us.  His fields are adjacent to the mountain.  Normally the herd will move back to the mountain just at daylight, but on opening day they find their normal route blocked by scores of hidden hunters.

As the shooting starts the herd runs back to the field, mills around, and then heads out in a high run for the next best exit route.  That route is a straight line up the hill through our lower fields and right toward the house.

Almost invariably, if we're watching, we'll see the herd chugging up the hill in a long line running as hard as they can.  The air is frosty and their breath is exhaled in long plumes of steam on each side of their muzzles.  The sounds of snapping barbed wire can be heard as the elk plow over, under and through each fence.  The herd hesitates just below our house as each realizes that this human habitation is in its way.  The herd often splits at this point with half deciding to take out the fences to the south of the house, and half doing the same to the north.

It's hard to blame the elk.  They're simply trying to avoid the war zone, and always leave some casualties behind.  They destroy the fences, but the hunters are the ones to blame.  Only once has a hunter ever offered to fix fence.  Elk aren't terribly popular at the Kerns house, but the people that hunt them are less so.  The elk don't purposely cut fences, break locks, shoot cows, leave gates open, and accidentally put a bullet through our bathroom window.

It was, therefore, somewhat satisfying to accidentally spoil the hunters' sport one opening morning.  On that particular day it was necessary to move a herd of cattle a mile up the road.  It was Wednesday, a school day.  The kids' help was necessary to get the cattle out of the field and on their way to the new pasture.  Since they had a bus to catch, the move had to be made early.

The cattle were gathered and sent on their way up the county road.  Hunters were busily driving at breakneck speed up and down the roads.  At this moment the elk herd suddenly burst from the woods south of us and ran across the field just an eighth of a mile above the house.  The hunters in their pickups in the valley saw the elk and stepped on their accelerators in order to be there when the herd crossed the county road.  But between them and the elks' projected crossing place was a herd of slow-moving cows filling the roadway from fence to fence.

Frantically the hunters tried to steer their vehicles through the cattle.  The air above them was blue.  Etched indelibly in my mind is the face of one hunter hyperventilating in his frustration at not being able to penetrate the plug of cattle in time to intercept the elk.  The herd made a clean getaway that morning.

Elk figure in several of Matt's hiking adventures.  In spring the cow elk have their calves low on the mountain because the upper reaches are still snow-covered and grassless.  The new mothers and babies are thus in the fields at night and hidden nearby during the day.  New mothers of any type are worthy of respect, and should be given a wide berth.  Cow elk are very protective of their calves, especially where coyotes, their chief predators, are concerned.

Matt's excursions into the woods are always accompanied by Annie.  Annie is his dog, by virtue of the fact that she claims him.  Matt does interesting things, so Annie watches for any sign of movement on his part and is instantly ready to go.

Annie's trouble on one such excursion was that, to an elk, she looked like a coyote.  Before either Matt or Annie knew what was happening a cow elk was charging straight at them.  Though they never saw it, her calf was undoubtedly nearby.  She was going to protect it by chasing off the intruders.

Annie jumped behind Matt.  Matt jumped behind a tree.  Annie made a break for it while Matt kept the tree between him and the elk.  The elk chose Annie as the most dangerous foe and charged after her.  Annie headed for home as fast as she could go.

Another day Matt was halfway up Hunt Mountain when he heard an elk bugle.  It was fall—mating season for elk.  Doing his best to imitate the bull's high-pitched whistle, he answered the call.  To his delight, it answered back.  Matt bugled again, trying to sound exactly like the bugling bull.  Each time it bugled, Matt answered back.

Presently he realized that the bull was coming closer.  It was answering his challenge.  It was coming to fight!  The hair on the back of his neck stood on end as the bull approached.  The brush shook as the challenger viciously slashed it with his antlers.  Should he run?  Or would the elk run when it saw him?  Would it attack?  Where could he take refuge?

It was a tense moment.  Matt stood his ground.  From the bushes stepped—an elk hunter.  His rifle was in the ready position, set to shoot the trophy elk he'd so carefully stalked.

Matt and the hunter stared at one another incredulously.  Each had been certain that he had been bugling in a bull elk.  Any elk in the vicinity were at that moment laughing uproariously over the imitators and the good joke they'd pulled on one another.  Matt and the hunter quickly got the joke also, and had a good laugh and a visit together.