Things That "Bump" In The Night

In last week's installment of..."Only in Alaska":

A week ago, last Tuesday, at around 2:00 a.m., Eric and I were both startled from our sleep by a noise coming from our backyard! After we heard the noise a time or two, and after a brief discussion, we surmised that either someone was in our home or that there had to be a rogue moose outside (maybe even on the deck). Of course, if I had been home alone, I would have been certain that there was an intruder, but because both my dad and Eric were here, I was sure it was just a moose. Eric popped out of bed and opened up one of our bedroom windows. Nothing!

He decided the noise was coming from the other side of the bedroom, so he opened that window, looked down, and witnessed a moose chomping away on a limp tree branch that it had just broken of a young tree in our yard! Eric ran down stairs and opened up the kitchen window directly in front of where that darn moose was standing. They looked at each other for a few moments and eventually the moose mosied on. It just didn't mosey far! It decided to stop just to the side of the deck and proceeded to chomp on another of our trees! At that point, Eric came back upstairs and we continued watching the moose's antics from our bedroom windows. Eric knocked on the windows and yelled at the moose a few times, but that stinker definitely had it's own agenda. Imagine that! We went back to bed and in the morning I observed that the moose had broken and gnawed branches off of not just one tree, but off of FIVE different trees in our yard. DAMN MOOSE!

Now let's fast forward to this week's installment of..."Only in Alaska":

Logan was the first one out the door for school this morning. Just as Logan pulled the door closed behind him, Kaiden noticed that there was a "small" moose outside. No sooner had Kaiden mentioned the moose to me, the door opened back up. Logan was coming back in because he had now observed the moose as well. Now what?

We had two choices. I could put the kids in the car and drive them all the way around the block to the bus stop (walking would take them too long at this point), or they could risk it and just move quickly up the back hillside to the bus stop. If they walked up the back hill, the moose would be sure to see and hear them and there could potentially be a "mama" nearby, who would feel threatened by the kids' presence! I observed the moose and the situation and being the good mom that I am...I sent them out the back door, up the hill, as usual!

The baby eyed the boys and continued chomping away on nearby branches. The boys quickly scrambled up the hill and made it safely to the bus stop without incident, just as I knew they would. I was, however, also fairly certain that a "mama" must be somewhere nearby. I opened all of the blinds on that particular side of the house to see if I could spot her. Sure enough, after not too long, I saw the female camouflaged among the trees. We must have some tasty shrubbery in our yard, because those moose stuck around for over two hours!

Right On Cue

The other day in my "things I've learned" post, I made reference to the fact that seeing moose and bears in our yard never gets old. Well, Saturday morning, as if on cue, we woke up to find a moose just sunning in our side yard. It hung around for about an hour and then went on its way.

I got a kick out of the timing of it.

Moose On The Loose

One of the most unique experiences we've had in our limited time here in Alaska is having moose roam freely in our yard. The first week we were here Kaiden was looking out the back window while eating lunch and he insisted that he saw a moose. Kaiden had been "seeing" a variety of wild animals for a few days and I was sure this was another of his "sightings", but I humored him and walked the window. Sure enough, right in our own backyard, was not one, but two moose. Naturally, being from California, the first thing I did was make a mad dash for the camera! The movers were still here and they laughed at us for being so excited about seeing moose. I won't apologize!

There are a couple of minor details that I have yet to overcome when it comes to photographing moose in their element, on the "fly" so to speak: if you get too close they run, if the camera flashes or makes the slightest noise they run, if they hear your footsteps they run, and if I'm far enough away to actually snap the picture, they're hidden behind branches. That my friends is why you may not be sure what exactly you were just looking at a picture of. It is in fact a picture of a moose in our backyard!

Don't fret...the moose (I'm sure it's a mama and her baby) have been around almost daily lately and I'm sure I'll eventually get a great picture for you all to see. Over the weekend, Eric and I were out shoveling snow in -1 degree weather and the neighbor alerted us that there was a moose lurking. Eric walked around the corner of the house and there, pressed up against the side of the house, eating the tips off of all of our plants, was a big mama moose. I tried for a headshot of her, but I was only able to get a picture of her butt. I didn't think you'd care much to see that angle, so I spared you this time! If the moose continue to be elusive on film, you may not fare as well next time.