Elk Ivory

It's like a scene out of the old west...the crusty cowboy comes across a skeleton while riding his horse through the untamed desert. Except the crusty cowboy is only me, and I'm not on a horse but rather my mule. And we aren't in the untamed desert, only the sage brush country not too far from home looking for antler sheds...but it appears the die hard antler hunters have beaten us to it. And the skeleton is nothing more than an elk cow carcass that was the victim of a hard winter. But look, she still has her ivories...and they are mine, all mine!!! And they are nice ones except I ruin them with my leatherman getting them out. Dang!

Sara shows she ain't affraid of no dead animal.

She gives the elk skull a good sniffing.

Ivory, glorious ivory!

The main purpose in driving an hour to go riding through the sage brush was to get some fat off of my mule. There's still too much snow at home. Antler huntinig is so popular (and so profitable) out here that they actually have to close large tracts of land to human entry to protect wintering wildlife. People have been known to chase elk down with snowmobiles trying to pull their antlers off with a lariat. So the land I was on this past weekend opened up April 1st. It is no wonder I didn't find any antlers....they are usually all found the first day.

I did see some wildlife on Sunday. I saw Sharp Tail Grouse, Sage Grouse, Elk, Mule Deer, and a Moose. Sara gets very excited about big game. She is very curious about them. She even sniffed out an elk bedded down in the sage and led me right to it. Just like a hound dog. I coudln't believe it when she made a bee line for this bush and an elk popped up behind it and ran off.

All and all it was a good time. I learned that not only is Sara a snow machine, but she eats up the desert too. Just don't pull a crinkly bag of candy out of your pocket or you are going for a ride!