They Are Screaming Again!

 

 

A truthful and inspiring memoir written by an ordinary woman who dealt with extraordinary circumstances.

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So Why
Are They
Screaming
Again?

 

I was not sure what topic I was going to choose to blog about this morning, until I was interrupted by the sound of something I only hear a few weeks out of the year,  and at this particular time of the morning.  As I listen to the loud squeals, this sparks a story that I must share.

It was very early in the morning when I first heard the high pitched sound seven years ago,   I lived in the mountains in a community called Strawberry Hollow.

Prior to experiencing the silence of the forest and living in Pine, Arizona, I had been a city girl all my life.  The sounds of cars, planes, sirens, people and children walking by weren't even a conscious thought in my mind. You don't really think twice about the everyday city sounds.

But when you move to a very rural secluded area where there are no freeways or cars nearby, let alone many people, silence speaks and the city sounds are replaced by trees swaying in the wind, birds chirping, singing and even the sound of their feathers quickly moving as they flap their wings in flight. A rooster in the distance or a horse whinnying. The thunder and lightening of a storm and water moving in a creek. Frogs croaking and crickets chirping are the mind numbing sounds you will hear among the forest.

At this time of the year for a little over two weeks I heard a sound that scared me.

Every morning just before the sun rises about mid September, there is a sound like no other.

My first September living in the mountains, I experienced this unusual sound and it made me wonder if I should call the police.  As I lay in bed listening to the inconsistent screaming for at least twenty minutes. I prayed, Dear Lord please protect and save the person who is screaming. Please stop the person from hurting them so they can be helped. I did not know where it was coming from and my heart ached thinking that someone was screaming so loud for help. The sound eventually stopped and I was glad. The next morning I heard it again, and again I prayed, Dear Lord, please send someone to help that person who is in pain. And I thought to myself, why doesn't that person get away from their attacker? And maybe I am not as safe as I thought here in the rural mountains.

Then I found out who the culprit was to this awful crime. And coincidentally I wasn't the only one concerned.  The local news reported one morning after I got up that people were calling in to the police about screams up here in the mountains. The police assured us…. us being newbie mountain people not to worry, because it was Elk rutting season.

This time of year, the big thousand pound males scream like girls to attract a mate. They call this bugling. My ears call it screaming like a girl.

This yearly ritual is going on now and I always think of this story and my innocent ignorance when I first heard it.

 

 

Elk Bugling