Moose Watch

MOOSE WATCH. Living here in Kenai, we've had to adopt some new safety procedures for leaving the house that we'd never considered back in Oregon, California or New Hampshire. Generally, we call it "Moose Watch." Moose Watch began after several near-miss incidents involving J and our neighborhood moose...

FRONT DOOR. One particular situation occurred a few months ago when J, in a bit of an early morning I-haven't-had-my-coffee-yet stupor, opened the front door in the dark to get a breath of fresh air and a sense of the temperature. Well, a mama moose was also getting a breath of fresh air and a sense of the temperature outside our front door and J came within an inch of her steaming nostrils before making a hasty retreat. Now remember, moose are furry, somewhat awkward-looking animals but they are powerful and can stomp the heck out of you... especially when taken by surprise and hemmed in by a house and a fence, with a baby moose trailing behind to boot! So we began doing a thorough check through the windows before opening the front door.

"I'm watching you..."

GARAGE. The second incident of note came the other morning after backing Icecream Newton out of the garage. As J locked the door and began to come toward us, Indigo and I watched a sleeping moose begin to rise up from a wintery nook next to the house, about 10 feet from J. We put down the windows and began yelling, "J! A moose! Be careful! A moose!" lest he scare the groggy beast and start off his day with a literal kick in the face. Thankfully J made it to the car and the moose began his morning nibbling on our barren trees. Thus began the driveway screening procedure to ensure a moose-free zone before backing out Icecream. Phew.

Moose Pooooop!

ZIGZAG ALARM. Luckily, we moved up here with a stellar alarm system in the form of our kitty, ZigZag. As you may remember, without fail, Ziggy will slink to the far corner of our kitchen, on top of the cabinets, and cower, if there is a moose near the house. Yesterday morning Indigo came flying out of her room screaming, "There's a moose! There's a moose!" because she could see Ziggy in his hiding spot. Sure enough, a mama moose was nibbling her way around the house, only visible from the top floor windows. The ZigZag alarm system allows us to employ the Moose Watch with a "level red" sense of security; we know the moose is out there and our job is to locate her so no one gets hurt. Homeland Security, thy name is Team Leslie.

"Yup, there's a moose out there. Meow."

MOOSE BOX. And of course there are the standard moose safety driving procedures that many of you already know: Give Moose a Brake. Our local signs say that 84 moose have been killed on Kenai Peninsula roads since January 1st. Interestingly enough, there is an official list of folks in the area who rely on subsistence foods; when there's a moose roadkill, the family at the top of the list gets a call from the highway patrol  and a team of volunteers clears the moose off the road and delivers it to them! The families used to have to come to the site of the kill and butcher the moose by the side of the road, but recent changes to the laws make it a safer endeavor all around.  I would say that I need to slow from 50 to 15 on a daily basis because I catch a hint of brown fur in the forest on the side of the road. Sort of like a high stakes, real-life, video game. So far both the moose and I are winning.

YOUR CHANCE. So in the interest of giving you loyal blog followers a piece of the action, I've decided to take you out on a very special Moose Watch. A bit of a tracking expedition, actually. Check out the video below... You'll need to make sure you're on the actual blog site (click the "Alaska Adventure" heading at the top of this email), turn up your volume and come along! The actual moose viewing is piss poor, but the commentary makes us giggle.