Sick.

Both ends.

Actually started back on Tuesday, but never had the time to sit back and savor the full symptoms of the malady (Flu? Cold? Who cares?) until today, something the wife has been doing since Sunday, and youngest son since the day before.

So much fun using the toilet one way, squatting or kneeling, and then immediately turning around and using it the other.

In other news of the day:

Attended the annual awards banquet for our youth group. Basically a full dress dinner of pizza and pop in the same room used for our monthly meetings. With dozens and dozens of boxes of pizza.

No muss, no fuss.

We may have finally found a venue that works. Over 50 attended, a record high.

And yeah, all everyone wanted to talk about was the elk situation. Told the wife as we went in we ought to have a betting pool on how many elk questions I would get through the evening.

Didn't matter. We both would have lost. Way too many questions to count.

And yes, everyone, and literally everyone, has a helpful suggestion on possible causes that we should be investigating. Some useful, some not. And many are ones that we can effectively discount at this time, thanks to tests that have been done. We still have no firm idea, but the list of possibles is significantly shortened.

"Just pull on her tongue," were the instructions given.

This to a game warden who was humped over an afflicted cow elk, trying to get the elk's legs untwisted into a more natural resting pose.

And the instructions were serious. Even though delivered with humor.

One of the symptoms of botulism, a potential cause still being investigated, is muscle death caused by the toxin produced by a bacterium. The same toxin used in Botox injections to kill facial muscles.

With an animal dying of botulism, when you pull the tongue out, the tongue muscles are too weak to pull it back in.

But the elk was having none of this test. One of the more vigorous gals we had found on the ground, which was why she was still left alive.

Once she was resettled in a natural pose, and the warden off her back for a rest from the wrestling match, the cow slipped her long tongue out, like a camel, and licked her lips.

Okay. No botulism. End of wrestling match. Score: elk 1, wardens 0.

Being housebound for the past week or so, the heeler sisters have been especially hyper on the few walks to the post office we have been able to squeeze in. Tugging and yipping and, yes, snapping at each other.

But no blood yet.

Usually on these energetic strolls, the little maskless heeler has her tail tucked down between her legs on the return trip. Fully intimidated, but not cowed, by both her sister and the hounds occasionally loose in the fenced yard on the corner.

But not since her four-night and four-day ordeal alone in the land of coyotes.

Now her tail hangs comfortably back. Not raised in excitement like her sister's, but loose and relaxed.

Confident.

Like someone who has faced the harshness of the real world, and held her own.

She still has nightmares, although much less frequent now. All three heelers have had the barking and running dreams, like most dogs, but since her return the barking in some of her dreams has been rapid and vigorous. Shaking her entire body, almost lifting it off the bed, occasionally waking her mother and sister (and us). And the feet are just flying in place.

But her tail is not tucked.

Naturally, we would love to know how her encounters with the wild canids went. Especially since she came back with nary a mark on her (some scrapes on her black nose all we could find).

And especially since I spotted a small coyote with a bloody butt during my searches for her, in the area where I finally lost her tracks that night, blown away by the howling wind.

Five miles and four hours from where I started.