January 10, 2004

• Moose on the loose

  
  

  Kathy has blogged numerous times about the joys and trials of living with moose.  So far this winter, 201 of them have died on the roads in the valley, untold other ones came off as the loser in  collisions with the train.  When this happens, they are butchered on the spot and the meat goes to various charities for distribution to the needy.  Many of us in the valley have dined,  and dined well, on what was basically roadkill.  But I digress.

  
  

  Mostly , the only moose we have seen were along the highway on the way to and from town.  We didn’t see moose in the immediate neighborhood, or even much moose sign, until the other day.  I went to our old place to put out some warm water for the feral cats living there and saw lots of moose tracks going through the yard.

  
  

  Today was fairly warm–it got up to almost freezing–and so I decided to walk our dog around the block and over to the mailbox instead of driving.  As we were getting to where Wild Bill Way intersects with Susitna Drive, I saw moose tracks.  Lots of them.  Rounding the corner heading towards the mailbox, I saw more tracks.  Then I saw the moose.  Koji, our lovable lunkhead, the 75-pound lap dog, got a tad excited.  He was standing up on his hind legs, straining at the leash.  He no doubt wanted to go and sniff the mooses’s butt, but I was having none of that.

  
  

  The moose barely gave us a glance, just kept munching on the willow browse and moved out of sight, and we continued on our walk.

  
  

  The only thing of interest in the mail was half a dozen flyers for the upcoming gun show at Wasilla High School.  I’ll be selling knives there, and quickly posted the single flyer sent me with my registration stuff I had gotten on Friday, so I called the chairperson for more.  They got here in a day, which amazed me.  Anyway, I decided to go and get them posted.

  
  

  I headed north, my first stop being at The Store, a local general store which mostly sells food, but also stuff  like boot liners and fishing gear .  I took down an outdated notice, re-arranged the existing ones to utilize the space more efficiently and posted my notice prominently.  I also spent way more time that I really wanted to schmoosing with Jack, the owner.  He is one of these guys who seems to have been vaccinated with a victrola needle, as the saying goes, but I finally got out of there and made my stops at Moore’s Mercantile, Sunshine Restuarant, Sunshine Tesoro Station,  the H & H Restuarant, and then headed back down the hghway towards  my last stop, the local hangout, Sheep Creek Lodge. This is pretty much all the viable businesses in a 15-mile radius of home, by the way, except for Camp Caswell, the local general store-RV park-laundromat-video rental place that got my first poster. After posting my last flyer, or flying my last poster, whatever, I was done, and headed back up the highway towards home.

  
  

  Rounding the curve just past the water hole, I saw two more moose, a mother and a young ‘un, standing well off the highway.  That’s where I like to see them–well off the highway.  They didn’t evolve with motorized vehicles and as a class have not grasped that those bright lights coming at them have a ton or two of glass and steel behind them.  Hitting a moose could be very bad news, especially since I don’t have collision insurance for the car (heck, I only paid $550 for the vehicle) or health insurance (no way can I afford it).  So I am very cautious driving in winter time, especially around dawn and dusk when the moose are most active.

  
  

  As a rule, if a passenger-size vehicle hits a moose, the vehicle is totalled and the moose is either killed or injured so badly that it has to be shot.  A recent moose-light truck collision killed the driver, who was coming home from work.  This was, I think, the first human fatality this year, but will probably not be the last.

  
  

  There are many interesting ways to die up here, and I think that will be the subject of my next blog.

  • 10:29 pm
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