Tuesday, April 15, 2014

An Amendment

In my back-to-blogging post a few days ago, the number one thing on my list was basically that a city is a city is a city. Well, I stand corrected. Last night as we sat at the table chatting after dinner, I uttered the following phrase, "Holy moose in our backyard!" because - you guessed it - moose (2!) in the backyard. WELCOME TO ALASKA!

Let me clarify a couple things about our yard:
1. It's not big. It's a nice wooden deck that ends where the foresty part starts, the forest runs another 15-20 feet back and then it drops off at a pretty steep angle. There's not a lot of yard to speak of.

2. These moose just appeared out of nowhere. Apparently they can scale pretty steep angles without issue because they ate off our trees, wandered toward the neighbors and disappeared right back down that slope. No big deal if you're a moose.

Now for proof:


Baby on the left, Mom is in the center of the picture but a little harder to see.
There's no zoom on this picture.

This the view from Natalie's room upstairs. Again, no zoom. Just a moose, eating our tree.

Off they go...

It would be a ridiculous lie to tell you I was calm. I was nothing of the sort because a few things were going through my mind,  namely that a mama moose with a baby is dangerous and that Natalie had spent at least 30 minutes out there playing in what's left of the snow yesterday afternoon. I just kept an eye on her from inside, but I wasn't out there with her. Needless to say we've now had a few conversations about moose safety and what to do if they show up again. It also reaffirmed my fear that if I ever see a bear in nature, it will eat me because I'll be passed out on the ground. Now who wants to come visit?


2 comments:

Leslie said...

Hmmm, if I came to visit, I wonder if the bear would stop and eat you passed out on the ground or find it more entertaining to chase me as I run away screaming like a woman possessed, at least until I undoubtedly run into a tree or fall off a cliff?

Those moose are HUGEmongous! I would never go outside again. Grilling would be terrifying. Does Natalie have a bb gun? Maybe you could load it with moose tranquilizers? Sheesh!

SStites said...

So glad you are back to blogging--love reading what you write and keeping up with your family that way. I do understand your statement about bears, because I've always said if a snake ever bit me it wouldn't matter one bit whether or not it was poisonous, because I'd be dead of a heart attack anyway! Hugs to all 4 of you!