Napoleon, again

Napoleon returned shortly after I did the post on him. He decided that the spot right beside my bedroom was the ideal spot for his moosely nap. He parked himself right next to my bedroom window.

Fortunately I walked in time to get a picture. He was literally a meter away. Quite unperturbed by the pesky humans. Unfortunately the camera recorded the screen on the window, hence the weird effect.

Moose are nocturnal animals. During the day they nap. I'm glad Napoleon did not feel threatened at Chalupy.

Napoleon invades Russia! Er, Chalupy.

Yesterday I went skiing, as I do every day the snow is decent. It has been a very bad winter for skiing and I take every opportunity I can to do so. I start out with my "warmup track" around the house. When I started on my second lap around the track, I heard this noise. It sounded something like "snap, crackle, pop" and it was coming from the tractor, or so I thought. A close examination of said machine revealed nothing. What's this? I skied a few more meters and behold! A large moose hiding behind the tractor, chowing down on alder or birch. Well, he wasn't bothering me, so I didn't bother him either. You are well advised not to intefere with moose. They may be (and are) placid creatures, but if they are feeling threatened they can trample you to death.

So later John and Fluffy returned from a Safari to Wasilla, and reported that the moose was napping behind the tractor. Nap? Nap? Napoleon, said I. That's his name. I think it's a he; if it were a lady it would probably have offspring. OK, put moose out of mind.

But this morning when I went out to do something or other there was something not quite right. There was something lurking around Brutus, the Ford Explorer that J&F drive.

 What is this? Looks like a moose to me. Awfully close to the house, too. After some effort we got closer and found a moose chewing its cud. Moose, in case you did not know, are ruminants.

At this point Napoleon started making distressed noises. Far be it from me to distress Napoleon. I backed off.

Furthermore the beast had been licking  Brutus. John accuses Napoleon. He says  he is having an illicit affair with Brutus. I think, however, that it is a salt infatuation. Moose love salt. Maybe I should put out a salt block. Can't put out hay. Moose cannot digest hay.

Anyway, I went to the bathroom window and got the following priceless shot:

When I went skiing today, Napoleon  was ensconced behind Lysander, my tractor. When I went by, he was sort of ruffled so I went elsewhere. When inspected at 6PM tonight, by John, he was at the extreme end of the driveway eating up the twigs. Amazing creatures. And Brutus definitely needs a bath. Not every Ford Exporer can boast that it has been licked by a moose.

Moose, MAWS, and folkore

As I said in my last post, folklore has it that a bunch of (any flavor) CDs repel moose. Not wanting to lose any more of my garden, I went out and strung up some CDs on string all around the garden.I called it MAWS (Moose Alert and Warn-off System) in the best acronym-insanity fashion.

I only had so many spare CDs. I do not use these contraptions very often. I must say, if the wind is blowing they certainly sparkle.  I put up all I had. Would it repel moose? Often there is some truth in folklore. But not this time. When I went out next morning, all my cabbage had been cleared out. I was devastated. Mooseburger looks better all the time. So, folklore. CDs may repel moose when the wind is blowing. Not enough experimental data to confirm. But it is certainly dubious at best. Next year, a real fence, with big heavy logs, to keep out the moose. There are some consolations, however.

 From the garden, summer squash. Below, zucchini and Japanese cucumber from the greenhouse. The Japanese cucumber is a winner. Will plant again next time. And we have parsley, Cilantro, and even some very small green beans in the garden. One chard is left. It was a happenstance, there must have been one seed stuck in the Earthways seeder when I planted it. Considering  how late it the squash was planted, I consider squash  a major miracle.

Meanwhile in the greenhouse I actually have some fair-size peppers. I am impressed. The moose will at least not venture there.

The attack of the killer moose

The perils of Alaska gardening are many. John greeted me today with the news that a pair of moose, mommy and child respectively, got loose in the garden. The good news is that he chased them (he was up early!) off and the damage was contained. The bad news follows.

Now I know that in the midwest deer are pests. Say you will about Bambi, when he eats up your hard-planted and cultivated corn, over which you have toiled for months, you begin to think that bambiburger is not such a bad thing after all. But I have been gardening here for about ten years. Only Cassius, whom I think has a label all to himself, was a pest. But Cassius was a special case, an obvious moose school dropout. We now have a repeat instance of the incident.

The broccoli is destroyed. Gone. Vanished. Eaten. It was the best broccoli I ever grew. At least we got to taste it before it was gone. There are moose prints all over everything, hope they show up. If not imagine big big prints in the mud (it has been raining for what seems forever). Amazingly the cauliflower survived. But all the leaves are gone. They left the cabbage untouched. We must be thankful for small mercies.

 Another shot of the cauliflower devastation. Moving on to row 1 (back) we see that the chard is gone, kaput, and over. I love chard. This hurts too. The beets survived, again a small mercy.

It could have been worse, I suppose. I seem to have connoisseur (or is that connosieuse?) moose. They went for the edges. And they left all the cabbage.

Conventional wisdom says that CD records blowin' in the wind will scare the moose away. I will try this as soon as the rain stops.  Myself  I would prefer #7 birdshot in the very large derriere of a moose. Nothing like reinforcing the lesson, see the Cassius posts. I would hate to kill a mother and child over anything as trivial as my garden, so #7 is the call, not the 30-30. And aim at the posterior. But you have to catch the culprit red-handed.

The greenhouse is unscathed. Another mercy. There is an ancient military saying. "Once is an accident. Two times is coincidence. Three is enemy action." Probably coined by Alexander the Great. I think it is CD time, even if it is only coincidence. Moose are supposed to be stupid. I notice they picked me, and not the Russians. That is because I am the outpost. Always attack the outpost. Maybe moose not so stupid after all. Sun Tzu himself would have done no better.

Moose I denn

In case you arewonderig about the title of this post, there is an old German folk song which begins like this:

    Muss I denn, muss I denn/ in Staetle hinaus....

This is old German and dialect at that. But it sort of sounds like moose. And it is time for the obligatory moose picture. Before Christmas I espied a branch moving to and fro. No wind. Said I, "either Sir Isaac Newton was full of garbage or there is a moose in the yard. Happily for physics, it turned out to be the latter. The culprit was a youngish moose. Not two meters from the window. Close! Thanks to John for the photo.

It is very nice to have moose in the yard. Gentle giants. This one is quite young. Recently cast off by mommy and left to his (her?) own devices.

Happy New Year! You too, mooses.

Moose in the yard, as usual

 It is fall. Hunting season is over. Somehow the moose know that, and they are starting to reappear in the yard. Now, if I could only get them to trim the lawn... but anyway, look, Ma, there's a moose in my yard!


  
Originally there was but one. One is a male. He has one small horn. Then we had three. I suspect that they are a family. Mommy to the left; son center, daughter right. I took this picture through the mosquito screen in the living room, a bit blurry. Sorry. Well, they are mowing the lawn, in a sort of mooseish disorganized manner. So I dashed outside, braving the -7C temperature. I got a slightly clearer picture.

I took a bunch of other pictures. No doubt the camera was mad at me. Point and shoot, they say, but they say nothing about whether you have all the complex settings in the camera correct.

But anyway, moose are fun. Don't get too close to them. They can trample you to death. And as I write this there are two more moose in the yard. My camera is out of battery. That kind of a day. These are a different set. Much darker than this morning's group. Definitely a moose day at Chalupy.

The gardener's revenge

A while back I wrote about the devastation in my garden caused by Cassius, the dropout moose. At the time I vowed that if I caught him at it, I would put some birdshot in his trousers. Well, perhaps there is a Fairy Godmother after all. Today I emerged from my afternoon shower and looked out the window. There was Cassius, noshing on my garden. I yelled at him out the window. Cassius, startled, retreated to the edge of the pasture. But no more. I went out, armed with a ski pole. I yelled. I threw rocks. I threw sticks. Replied Cassius "what are you so upset about, human? Didn't you plant this garden just for me? Shut up and let me gobble up the rest of your veggies. Resistance is futile!" You could just see the wheels going around in what passes for a moose mind.

At this point, I saw red. Actually, in a crisis I never see red. I think quite coldly. Cassius needs to be taught a lesson. So I went inside. I broke open the box of #7 birdshot. I broke out my trusty double-barreled shotgun. As I recall, number sevens are BB-sized. Won't penetrate Cassius's thick hide, much less his skull. But he'll be stung. Out I went. The first thing to try is a wide shot. Usually this will do it. Even bears understand BOOM! But Cassius said, "Hey, human, why do you make so much noise?" Cassius, you are indeed a dropout. It may not even be your fault. Maybe mommy let you down. Or maybe, maybe, you are just retarded. However, I will not have my garden devastated. So I angled left. Cassius, meanwhile, was calmly eating some fireweed. Perfect. His size 100 stern was in clear view at about 50 meters. Put the bead on it (shotguns are not aimed, as a rifle is. You just point). Squeeze the other trigger. That fetched him! Cassius disappeared at the gallop. Perhaps he got the idea. Perhaps he didn't. If he didn't I have lots more birdshot. And next time I will get closer and hurt more. Of course Cassius prefers night-time feeding. Or should. But maybe he is, as I said, retarded.

At the end of the road there is the 30-30 Winchester and moose roasts. I hate to take that step. I prefer to live in harmony with the wildlife. Meanwhile there is the shotgun.
And there is my trusty double. It is on my bed, to remind me to clean it before I go to bed. I love doubles. If you can't do it in two shots you shouldn't be messing about with firearms. I did not take photographs of this episode in real time. That makes me an amateur blogger indeed. Sorry. I thought of the shotgun long before I remembered my camera.

Alaska law says that you may lawfully shoot any animal that is threatening your life or property. I suppose I could justify a fatal shot but I certainly hate to do so. Although it is a year's worth of meat. We will stick with birdshot. And, as a friend of mine said, the Russians might not be so scrupulous. You don't mess with Russians, as the Wehrmacht found out.

Disaster strikes the garden

This morning I arose early as usual. I went out to the garden to water. It has been a rather dry summer so far. To my horror, my broccoli had been eaten. Only the stalks remained.
Oh no, I thought. A Wascally Wabbit, as Elmer Fudd would say. But I grew up with Sherlock Holmes. We investigated further, and even Dr. Bumbling Watson could spot the culprit: a moose. Either that, or a species hitherto unknown to Science, the moose-footed rabbit. Large hoofprints all over the place. No -- it's a moose. Not only that: the vandal cleaned out all my beets, all my cabbage, all my chard, trampled my snap beans, gnawed on cauliflower (it may yet recover), and I am only fortunate that it seems to abhor leeks. It did put its size 125 hoofprints in my leek bed, however. And in various other places too.

Now moose usually mind their own business. They forage in the forest, and do not come around in the summer eating gardens. I know that in the lower 48 states, deer are a problem for crops. But moose are a moose of another color. I think I have an aberrant moose. In fact, I have seen him (or her) before. He/she was cast loose by mommy prematurely. Why? I cannot say. I even have a picture somewhere in this blog. Since I can't sex moose very well at a distance, let us assume "he" is the applicable pronoun. Very well, I have named him Cassius. This is because he has a "lean and hungry look" according to the Bard of Avon (Julius Caesar). Cassius is a dropout. He never learned to forage. Shame on mommy, except that maybe mommy met with an accident. So he is eating our gardens. I say "our" because today the battalion of Russian kids came by for their daily woodwork lessons, and informed me that Cassius has been around their gardens too, with disastrous results.

Now I would hate to do Cassius in. It is not yet, in spite of our dire economic situation, a matter of life and death. But my garden is devastated. So if I can catch Cassius at it, what I will do is put a load of #7 birdshot in his a..., er, trousers. With my trusty double shotgun. This might teach him a salutary lesson. If not, I am sure the village will break out the Kalashnikovs and that will be the end of Cassius.

I have tried to keep this light. But I am very upset. A family tradition is the end-of harvest Borscht. This requires beets and cabbage. Both are gone. It is impossible now to re-seed and re-grow. I am mulling over various plan B things. But it looks bleak for beets and cabbage. Not to mention chard, broccoli, and beans.

Stormy Weather and a moose

Yesterday we had the worst snowstorm of all the winter. In April, no less. It dumped 30 cm of snow, or one foot if you prefer, in the course of a day. The Weather Service was right on the ball (this time) and called it with ample warning. This morning I looked out my front porch.
The mountains in the foreground are caused by snow sliding off the roof. When it does so it makes a noise very like an earthquake. Ouch -- but it is just snow. The snow is right up to the level of the porch railings. The temperature at the time of the picture (8 AM) was about 1C -- above freezing. So the snow is wet. Grrr. I went out and started my snowblow routine, and sure enough I had great difficulty. Wet snow is terrible. The machine, heavy though it is, can't get traction. I need chains for the snowblower. Sigh. I worked two hours, by which time I was exhausted and had done maybe 20 meters. Only 150 (?) to go. I must get the GPS out and measure my driveway. Tomorrow we will go again. Just like January. Such is life in the Alaskan bush.

While I'm here, I might as well post a moose picture.
This guy -- I assume it's a guy because (a) it is very large and (b) it has no offspring in tow -- was munching near the airport, twenty meters from the Parks highway. I love moose. But don't get too close to them. They could get upset with you and tromp you to death. They weigh far more than us humans.

Alaska Interlude

So when I went and skied to the Iditarod, a post ot two ago, I did not ski any longer than I usually do. Thing is, I cooled off in the middle. And the snow was so nice coming back that I went all out. Disaster. My legs hurt and due to all the complications of old age and the rather convoluted human nervous system, I hurt. A lot. So I have not been skiing until today, almost a week. Instead, I walk. I am learning to toe in. Thanks to some very clever therapists, I can walk without my back aching. All I have to do is toe in! Try it sometime. American Indians toed in; in fact they could tell whether tracks were made by palefaces or one of their own kind . Most Europeans toe out. Guaranteed to give you backache in your old age. So I am learning to walk again, strange though it may sound. So out I went to what I call "Polushkin Pond," retracing my ski route. And there he was...
Aloysius X. Moose, browsing on the ur-Reutov birches (or alders). Totally unconcerned. Now mind you, I have moose tracks one meter from my house, but they are nocturnal tracks. Seldom do you see them in the daytime. Now how do I know that it is probably "he" and not "she?" Well, the ladies are usually accompanied by calves. No kids? Probably a male. Also, the attitude. Females will usually vanish. Protect offspring at all costs, even interrupt a tasty meal. Not the blokes. Their attitude is "if you get any closer I'll stomp on you. Now go away!" Not wishing to be stomped on, much less interrupt a moose at breakfast, away I went. By the way, Aloysius is probably either Ricky or Racky. Those are my two resident males. In the fall, they pal around together, with their splendid racks of horns. Racky's rack is a bit bigger than Ricky's.

In other climes, March is spring. Things start to bloom. But my driveway is still rather snowbound:
Car tracks outside, ski tracks in the middle! This is actually not my driveway. It is a road, known to the Beneficient Bureaucracy of the Mat-Su borough as "North Basargin Circle." I cannot understand this. It is not a circle. Not even approximately. Perhaps the Russians who cut the road were conversant with Lobachevsky's geometry, where circles can become straight lines. It goes the wrong way to be North. You are looking South in the picture. Not even Lobachevsky can get away with that. However, the beneficient bureaucrats regard it as a "private road" and don't clear it. So I have to do it myself or I can't get in. My driveway actually starts where the picture ends. Bless all bureaucrats. May they spend their time in the afterlife shovelling snow in Jehannum. Dear me. Maybe it's too hot in Jehannum for snow. Never mind, if Dante could imagine many Hells then I will imagine one where bureaucrats get to shovel snow. Politicians will go there too. They will shovel snow with garden trowels.

Life at -38C

Until about three days ago, a high pressure area was firmly entrenched over south-central Alaska, where I live. Although sunny, temperatures plummeted; somewhere around Sunday the pressure on my barometer was 1042 millibars and the temperature -38.4C, close to the wimp-out limit on my digital thermometers (-39.8), and in this weather I decided to go for a walk. I can't ski at those temperatures, the cold freezes both hands and feet. However, at least one moose was undeterred by the temperature.
The moose is the slightly darker blob center. I confess to a lousy picture. The camera was in close-up mode. A grave mistake. Change modes inside, before you go out. I had stored camera inside the many layers of clothing I wore (more later) and getting it out is a production, which also freezes your hands because you may be very deft, but I defy you to operate a camera wearing US Army surplus Arctic mittens. You can't wear the cam outside your clothing because the batteries will drop dead in about three minutes.

Anyway, with my hands frozen I went as far as I could, but my hands are a weak point and I started back. On the way, there was Little Lonely Lake.
I am looking mostly East at this point; notice that although it is past 10AM the sun is very coy about exposing itself. Notice also the enormous number of Satan Sled, er, Snow Machine tracks on the lake. They make skiing very difficult. I have to stick to the edge of the lake; the blasted things like to take up the middle. And just about the whole lake.

I survived the experience in good shape, my hands warmed back up. So, perhaps you wonder, what does the hardy Alaska Sourdough wear at -38C? I assure you it will not make the pages of Gentleman's Quarterly.

This is, of course, a posed shot with the camera on a tripod. In Alaska you dress in layers. Long underwear, polypro for choice. Never wear cotton in cold weather. It gets sweaty and freezes. I have several weights of polypro, but will not post embarassing pictures in the blog. But today's was medium (I have some really heavy artillery in reserve). Wool shirt. Padded Carhartt's overalls. Fleecy heavyweight vest by Lowe's; I live in it in winter. Overall my Alyeska down parka, marvellous garment with a fur collar, acquired on the cheap at a spring sale at a thrift store. Knitted cap on head, pull the hood over it. Not shown (cut off by the camera) are the essential bunny boots. This is an improbable footgear made, it seems, out of rubber for the US Army. I had a long conversation, recounted elsewhere in this blog, with a Yorkshireman named Tom, who told me all about bunny boots. First, buy the white ones, not the black ones. Second, try to get the ones with the manufacturer's name (Bata) on them. They go for about $70 these days, but I found a pair for $9 at the Salvation Army! They are miraculous. They are very comfortable besides. They work like a Thermos bottle -- multiple layers with air between.

So there you have it. Today, the barometer down to about 1020 (and falling) and it is cloudy. Light (very light) snow outside. Snowstorm coming up the Cook inlet. I might miss us; then again, it might not. Welcome to Alaska in winter.

And why did the moose cross the road?

One of the frequent corollaries of Murphy's law (there really was such a person, look up Aloysius X. Murphy if you like) is that when you really, really, need your camera you will not have it. Thus, I make an effort to carry it. Well, today was cloudy, ugly, and looked like rain. Not a day for the camera. They get wet in the rain. Not good for electronics. But it was a walk day, and I decided to walk on the bike path which parallels the Parks highway, the main connection between Anchorage and Fairbanks.

The virtue of this walk is that I can detour and check out the airplanes; the defect is that there isn't much ever going on. So I had this dialog with myself: "if it rains the camera will get wet. A hundred bucks down the tubes. " My alter ego said "yes, but what if you see a moose crossing the road?" I said, of course, "Alter Ego, you're as wet as my camera will be if it rains." Reply: "Trust me." Hmmm. Alter ego, maybe we'll listen to you. I tucked my camera into a sealable sandwich bag, which I had wisely purchased for just such a purpose. Off we went. A few minutes out of the Willow community center, what should we see but...
...a moose crossing the road! Good grief, Alter Ego was right! I apologize for the blurry quality of the picture. I was at least 300 meters away; I went to extreme tele and snapped. This pic has been ruthlessly cropped and enlarged 200%. It's mommy and junior. I think it's a pair I have named Jemima and Ginger. I have had several encounters with this pair. Ginger is a little slow, or perhaps merely curious, but eventually gets the idea. Notice Jemima's flawless road-crossing technique: walk, do not run. Just about every driver in Alaska will "give the moose a brake" but they have to see you to brake; if you bolt out there chances are you'll be hit, with fatal consequences for all concerned. Who says moose are stupid?

And the sun came out, but long after I had come in for the day. I think it's a conspirancy theory.

Antlers away!

About this time of year, male moose start shedding their horns, which they only sport during mating season. There are two big bulls in my neighborhood. I have named them Ricky and Racky. Racky has, of course, the larger rack. They are pals; they go about together. Unexpected behavior to me, but then, I am no moose expert. So I was out skiing a few days ago, and behold (and also lo!) what should I see by my feet but an antler, freshly dropped:
Couldn't tell, of course, whether it was Ricky or Racky. But it's big. The tape is pulled out to 95cm (about 34") -- a large rack indeed. I searched all over for ithe other one but couldn't find it. Amazing: in the snow, almost anything looks like a moose antler, but is usually a rotten log. Camouflage at work.

We had a moose convention in the yard today. I was out in the wilds, skiing, but my son recorded the jamboree. But that is another post.

Moose in the yard II

So I look out my living room window, and behold (and also lo, if you wish):
Two moose calves investigate my compost heap (which they did not think was very tasty) and the remains of the lettuce (which they gobbled up as if it were candy. Moose candy). Behind the mooselet on the left, you can see a lighter brown splotch. That is mommy Moose, Madame M as I have named her. Emma for short. Emma, being a sensible moose, is browsing on some twigs that I didn't get around to clearing this summer.

You can see her a little better here:

Eventually my smell must have wafted over to Emma because she came over:
So note, any naturalists reading the blog: moose calves like lettuce, even when frozen solid. You supermarket shoppers wouldn't touch it, but being a moose calf is a serious business. On the other hand, they turned up their noses at spinach and leeks, the last of the hardy crops. Emma knows that birch and alder are the menu for the coming winter.

Moose in the yard

We interrupt our regularly scheduled woodworking discussion to notify you that there is a moose in the yard, at about 10AM. Usually they come earlier. This one is dubbed Blacktop, because she's, well, kind of dark for a moose. At least I think it's she. No horns at all; this is about time for racks on guys.