Iowa State University Capstones, Theses and Graduate Theses and Dissertations Dissertations 2009 Elk Summer Callae Mignon Frazier Iowa State University Follow this and additional works at: https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/etd Part of the English Language and Literature Commons, and the Rhetoric and Composition Commons Recommended Citation Frazier, Callae Mignon, "Elk Summer" (2009). Graduate Theses and Dissertations. 10631. https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/etd/10631 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Iowa State University Capstones, Theses and Dissertations at Iowa State University Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Graduate Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Iowa State University Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Elk summer by Callae Mignon Frazier A thesis submitted to the graduate faculty in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF FINE ARTS Major: Creative Writing and Environment Program of Study Committee: Debra Marquart, Major Professor Stephen Pett Kevin de Laplante Iowa State University Ames, Iowa 2009 Copyright © Callae Mignon Frazier, 2009. All rights reserved. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS OCTOBER 1 Chapter 1-Two Elk Lodge 1 JULY 9 Chapter 2 - Elk Magic 9 Chapter 3 - Elk Search 34 Chapter 4 - Elk Mountain 67 Chapter 5 - Elk Rhythms 87 Chapter 6 - Elk Rut 104 Chapter 7 - Garden Elk 132 Chapter 8 - Beaver Creek Elk 140 AUGUST 169 Chapter 9 – Benchmark 169 Chapter 10 - Elk Company 194 Chapter 11 - Elk Bugle 211 OCTOBER 221 Chapter 12 - Two Elk Fire 221 EPILOGUE 227 AFTERWORD 229 BIBLIOGRAPHY 231 1 OCTOBER Chapter 1 – Two Elk Lodge I awoke into that strange blur of confusion about place and purpose that so often happens when sleeping in an unfamiliar bed. Yet the bed and the room should have been instantly recognizable. I grew up here, the only place I had known as home for twenty-two years. Though I had been away at college for over four years, and would complete my degree in wildlife biology from Colorado State University at the end of the fall semester, when I spoke of “home” it was with the image of a warm, inviting, brown-sided house tucked into the pines and aspens at 8,500 feet in the Colorado foothills outside of Denver. Not the stark, brick-walled, dark apartment in Fort Collins shared with my best friend from childhood. Megan and I valiantly tried to make the garden apartment cozy and inviting, and after more than two years memories had seeped into the unforgiving brick to make it something more than just a place we happened to be at the time. Even so, my strongest memories, the place I felt most safe and secure, remained on the land my parents named Dovestring for an early romantic moment in their twenty-seven year history together. Dovestring is a nearly ten-acre homestead on a diverse sliver of foothills landscape where wide-trunked, red-barked ponderosa pines keep company with proud lodgepole pines, classically shaped spruce, fir and a smattering of pale-skinned aspens. It lies on an acreage bisected by a gentle ravine whose shallow hands gently cup a narrow perennial spring for a few amazing weeks during the winter snowmelt. A land my parents fell in love with, and settled on at a time when access from Denver meant winding up a little-used, two-lane highway in their VW bus, with all the groceries needed for several weeks since the only store in the immediate vicinity was a tiny stone-walled gas station. A land my little brother and I had free reign of as long as we were able to “see the house at all times.” We agreed that as long as one of us could see even a teeny bit of the brown siding, we were following the rule. Often, we forgot about the house entirely as we explored, lay on or crawled over every inch of the property. We turned over logs and moss clumps, nibbled on sweet wild strawberries 2 and engaged in deadly Ponderosa pinecone wars. In the fall we helped with gathering firewood, making sure to run far away from the creaking tree when Dad yelled out, “Timber!” In the winter we followed the tracks of squirrels, coyotes and the occasional elk. We chased each other on hands and knees in the snow, pretending to be rabbits or bobcats, and took shelter in tree wells. We never got too cold, or too scared, or too hurt. Even if we did, the quick course of hot fear, or pain quickly dispersed. We knew we always had a safe place to return. A warm home with warm arms ready embrace away the chill, the pain, the fear. The home my parents envisioned and eventually built in 1973 came into existence in the thin air of the mountains thanks in large part to friendships that grew and blossomed around my amiable parents during those heady days of the early 1970s. A close friend helped draw up the architectural plans. More friends, old and new, arrived to help with the framing and initial construction. Dovestring is a single-story floor-plan, oriented to fit into the existing, sloped landscape with as little disruption as possible. A minimum number of trees were removed, and to avoid digging out a basement level, the foundation rises higher on the north-eastern side. Sturdy stilts support the deck, part of the living room, parts of the study, and a master bedroom added in later years. The east side of the house soars some distance above the ground giving the impression from inside of being on a second story. Even with their careful planning, some land obviously had to be disrupted to install the septic system and well. For several years after its completion, my mother carefully transplanted native grasses and plants from the surrounding forest to cover the blemish left where the septic tank was installed. A flower garden rings the scar made by the well drill. Birds bathe in a shallow dish standing in the middle of the flowers, splashing in water pumped from deep under their tiny toes. With a homesteader’s desire to take responsibility for everything they created, my parents took charge of the interior work, drywall, electrical, plumbing, without professional help. Some switches are installed upside down, and overnight guests quickly learn that the shower taps are swapped, so they get cold water when they turn the faucet for hot. Easily forgiven small quirks of a home built in love and resonating with character. 3 The end result is a modest ranch-style house, with wide, wrap-around porches, a high- ceilinged living room, and enough windows and skylights so sunlight can find its way in somewhere every day of the year. The forest around the home abounds with life. Chickadees, nuthatches, juncos, grosbeaks, red cross-bills, Stellar’s jays, pine siskins and many other birds regularly visit seed feeders placed around the house. Tufted eared Abert’s squirrels, now increasingly rare, and hard-to-miss small and noisy chickaree squirrels share the forest with foxes and coyotes. Raccoons climb up on the deck and dip their paws in the bird’s water dish. Porcupines scrape bark, and chomp needles from high perches in pines, and leave scattered piles of sweet, piney-scented scat in the duff below. Bears have destroyed hummingbird feeders accidentally left out overnight, and ripped into the compost bin next to the garden. Once, a young black bear wandered through the small courtyard my ground-level window looks out onto. I could have reached out and stroked him as he passed. Cougars occasionally drift down from their haunts higher on the mountain, though I’ve never been lucky enough to see one. For the longest time we rarely had deer. As more people took up residence in the area, bringing the perhaps necessary evils of the city with them in the form of commercial centers, deer have become more common. Though we don’t always see them, long-legged elk pass through regularly, and did so long before our family renamed the land Dovestring. Back in my familiar, yet not familiar room at Dovestring, I climbed out through a blurred awakening, confused until the wafting scent of waffles seeped into my awareness. Waffles! A weekend morning treat. A treat made more special since they were whipped up by my father, who vocally decries an inability to make anything edible in the kitchen unless it is related to breakfast or bread. I stirred from the bed, the same skinny, twin mattress I slept on since junior high. Years later my parents would finally substitute the narrow bed for one that would better hold two bodies instead of one. Eventually it would see two bodies, gently curled together in the place I knew as a sanctuary. At the time of this story I awoke alone. I reached behind my head and slid back the delicate floral curtains my mother made years before. The view 4 through the low-lying window was engulfed primarily by a tall chokecherry tree, some branches nearly pressed against the glass, cloaked in a cascade of red, yellow, green tinged leaves. Then I remembered why I had returned to Dovestring. Autumn meant it was firewood season. I wandered down the hallway toward the kitchen with an eye out the windows wondering if something interesting might emerge. Since the age of six when I first saw elk through foggy, fading dusk, I peered out windows quietly hopeful for a similar reward. After the last summer though, my senses had become even more attuned to changes in the landscape.