Moose in the Neighborhood!

Sunday night my folks came up to help us paint where our flower beds would be for the landscaping to start Monday morning. While we were out in the dark doing the last line, I caught a glimpse of a moose next to our neighbor's house. Really? Did I just see a MOOSE?!

Then all the memories flooded back of a group of us in our early 20's hiking in AF canyon when we got chased my a cow moose protecting her calf. It was really scary and one of our friends ended up running up a half-fallen evergreen trying to escape from the ginormous animal. The one I saw Sunday wasn't huge, but the instant I saw it and thought back on my past experience, I had to know where my boys were. Of course they were on the side of the house I couldn't see - the side closest to the big gal!

I yelled, "MOOSE! Where are the kids?! Get them away fast!" Then of course I ran in the house and got my camera. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to capture any good shots, but our neighbor Chris got the one above, as it was running from his yard with new big holes in his freshly-lain sod. As the animal ran across the street and into their yard, I called them to let them know a big moose was just outside their back door. Thanks for the picture Chris.

By the way, that's our house in the background and if you look closely, you might be able to see me, Jon, the boys and my folks watching the whole thing from the porch.

At that point, the police had arrived and as they drove by, they scolded us for being outside - with their loudspeaker, "Get in your houses NOW!" "Return to your homes immediately!" Mom held the boys on her lap and I ran around the corner to try and get more pictures. The moose finally got out of the neighborhood and trotted up the hills, but we had quite an adventure. Thanks for visiting our neighborhood Miss Moose.