If you haven’t figured out by now, I am an animal lover. One of the greatest things about living in Alaska besides the scenery, cooler weather and culture is the wild animals living in and around the Anchorage borough. Yesterday about 9pm AST, after spending a couple of hours cleaning and restoring partial order to the house along with shuffling items from the table to the counter, Robert happened to look out the office window and there was a moose munching on the shrubbery across the street. These animals are so much fun to watch. There were actually two of them – Momma and a yearling. Every time I see moose in the neighborhood, they are grazing at the one house that has spent hundreds of dollars buying plant protector cages. Somehow, the owners always know when the moose are snacking in their yard and last night was no exception. If they were in our yard, we would miss them unless cars were stopped outside blocking traffic and then it would still be questionable.
Once Robert pointed them out – I went running outside with the camera to stand on the front porch watching and waiting for the perfect moose picture. Approximately 45 seconds later, I came back inside to get my coat as it was around 14 degrees. Upon returning to the porch, I lasted long enough to see the man of the house come out and shoo them to the next yard. Sneaky moose – they waited until the lights went out and walked right back over to those tasty treats. I swear moose understand about cars also. As one or two cars were driving along the street, Momma actually moved to hide behind a large bush of some type (mainly sticks right now). It is hard to describe how well they blend into the woody areas.
Once both were back in the original yard, sure enough - here come the lights and this time snowballs were the effective means of driving them off. The snowballs were much more effective than “shoo” and they went running - wow are moose fast for as big and awkward as they appear. By now it is 9:30 and I convince Robert we should drive down the road and take Squirt to look at them if we can find them. Of course I have the camera too. We lucked out and got relatively close. I took some great night shots. Well – they would have been great had they been in focus. The shot above is the best one - too bad I didn't use the zoom lense. Squirt still hasn’t said "woof" once to any of them. Smart dog.
Another really great thing that happened Tuesday while walking back to the office building after lunch. We were just crossing the street when we heard “Roberrrrtttt”. There was our former next-door neighbor from Houston. He happened to be in town for business and we were just in the right place at the right time. It was so much fun to see him if only for a couple of minutes. Hopefully he will be making more trips north and maybe even talk his wife into coming! It really is a small world.
Btw – Squirt is doing fine. We are walking about twice a week – snow boots and everything! He is a sled dog at heart. He pulls and pulls in the snow trying to get us to walk faster. Who needs a personal trainer when we have a dog who thinks we should run in the snow!
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