Never get between a moose cow and her baby

Moose calf walking thru the deep snow in our backyard

Post author:Nicole Mölders
Reading time:6 mins read

“Bang!”

“What the heck was that?” I asked my husband. “No idea, may be the cat.” he answered. “Nope, she sleeps in her favorite spot.” I replied. “No idea.” I stood up and said “Well, it wasn’t an earthquake either. There were no waves.” I went into the pantry to look if something had followed gravity. This explanation seemed likely as we were grocery shopping the day before and had brought these supersize packages of toilet tissue and kitchen paper towels. They don’t fit well onto the shelve.

#Moose #AlaskaWildlife moose munching in a yard — Moose cow munching on leftover vegetables in our backyard

“Everything is in place” I said, closed the pantry door and went upstairs. I took a peak out of the master bedroom to see whether a snow avalanche had gone down the roof. There was nothing to see but blue sky precipitation. This means the sky was blue, the Sun was low above the horizon blanketing everything in a kitschy pink orange shade. The sun rays made the little ice crystals that were nearly airborne in the air visible in silver. They reflected the light like silver glitter in all colors of the rainbow. However, the ice crystals were only the size of tiny dust particles, but with a nice crystal shape.

I went downstairs. “Did you find something?” I heard my husband when I entered the kitchen. “Nope, but I now know what it was.” I replied and rushed to get my camera. “What are you doing?” “Photo safari. The big bang was a moose hitting the leg when jumping over our fence.”

Mother and calf moose in our fenced-in backyard — Mother moose digging in our vegetable yard while her calf munches on broccoli

After taking the first photo, I realized that there were two moose in our backyard. A young mom and a calf. “It’s a cow and a calf” I yelled out in excitement. The mom dug with her hooves in our vegetable garden. She threw big amounts of snow about 3 or 4 yards (2.73-3.66 m) thru the air. She used her funnel-like nose end to identify locations with leftover broccoli, red and white cabbage. Meanwhile the calf had approached the beet too and imitated the mom. While the calf was a less effective snow thrower, it was as fast as the mom in digging the goodies out.

“Don’t poop in my yard” I heard my husband saying when he came to the window. Moose poop is very resistant to decay. Unless you break it apart, these little Easter chocolate-egg-size moose poops last in your yard forever. Moose poop is even used to make Alaska souvenirs in form of earrings. No, seriously.

Moose cow and calf searching for food in a garden — Moose cow and calf searching food in our vegetable garden

“As long as they are in the vegetable garden, I don’t mind, I’ll just dig it under at the end of May.” I said. “That’s fine, but I don’t like their little gifts on the lawn.” he said.

We watched the moose for quite a while. Once they had harvested the garden, the little one even tried to munch on our wild roses, the mom jumped over the fence.

The calf stood in front of the fence for a while looking after mom, but mom continued walking away. The calf did several tries to jump, but was afraid. “May be we should help?” “Are you kidding? You can’t lift a moose over the fence. It will kill you with the hooves. When the mom sees you between her and her child she will stomp you to death. Never ever get between a moose cow and her little one” I screamed out in panic.

Focus Alaska two moose in front of our deck — Moose cow munching on delphinium while the calf looks on

“No, I won’t. I just open the fence door and it can go out. I won’t get between them as I can use the front door. They are on the other side of the house and fence door.” I was about to protest when the little moose took a deep breath and jumped over the fence. What a relieve!

We went to the front door and saw that they obviously had come in on the side of the front and fence door. Interestingly, they had left the backyard on the other side of the house.

Alaska lifestyle moose calf and cow — Moose cow and calf heading towards the frozen slough

We saw the moose walking like black shadows against the kitschy pink orange sky and snow covered black spruce trees. The two crossed the street and vanished thru the neighbor’s (unfenced) yard down onto the ice-covered slough.

OOTD

Friday I had to attend a meeting. Thus, I wore this tweed sheath for work with a blue sweater underneath and polka dot tights. At work, I wore blue pumps. the outfit photos in this post only show the outfit I wore on the commute to and from work. It was warm enough (-7F, -21.7^oC) to get away with just a jacket. Thus, I took the opportunity to wear this bell sleeve jacket.