Posted on 03/03/2016 5:26:48 AM PST by SJackson
AZY MOUNTAIN -- On a recent cold night, I decided to wash some dishes.
My wife and I live in a little dry cabin up near Hatcher Pass, which is to say we don't have running water. So I put a big pot on the propane stove to heat, rousted the dogs and took the 5-gallon bucket of dirty dishwater from under the sink to go dump it in the outhouse.
I was a little over halfway there when the heavy crunching started in the snow about 15 feet away, behind a large birch tree.
The dogs, Biscuits and Slippi, had been lazing in front of the wood stove all evening and were even slower to react than me. By the time they started barking, I had already hustled ahead to the outhouse and was just starting to open the door when a second moose charged around the far side and rushed by me, so close I could have reached out and felt its fur.
The moose skidded to a stop right where I'd been walking a moment before, head lowered aggressively, threatening the dogs.
With a little distance now between us -- maybe 12 feet -- I could tell it wasn't a big moose, just a juvenile male. But I'm not a total idiot. Even a small moose can plow through a 195-pound man as if he were a sock puppet. The other small moose was now emerging from the birch stand, so my odds weren't getting any better.
It's dangerous enough to be so close to a couple of agitated animals, but what worried me most was the one I didn't see. Because at that point I hadn't determined if they were on their own or if Mom was around, maybe standing right there in my blind spot -- just beyond the thin plywood door.
I love encounters with wildlife. That's one of the main reasons my wife and I gravitate toward the rustic life in Alaska. But as much as I love gazing at wild things, I don't really relish the idea of getting trampled or kicked, so I ducked the rest of the way inside the outhouse and let the door clap shut behind me.
If you're trapped Here's some advice if you ever find yourself trapped in an outhouse under similar circumstances:
1) Don't think about how terrible it would be if a hypothetical mama moose heard you shuffling around and kicked in the door so your wife found you after she got home and a reporter found out and wrote about it, so everyone on the planet learned your name because you died by getting kicked to death in an outhouse.
2) If possible, go back in time and bring a coat, bear spray and some mirrors on sticks that will help you quickly figure out where the moose are standing when things get chaotic outside.
3) Go ahead and empty that dishwater bucket while you're waiting, because an empty bucket is about to come in handy.
I dumped the bucket down the Hole of No Return, then stood there listening. The sounds were muffled, and I couldn't tell if they were coming from a small moose a few feet in front of the outhouse or a bigger, meaner, more maternal one getting ready to destroy the first person to pop out.
To make things worse, the dogs were barking like crazy, but not working together with any kind of wolf-like strategy that might have driven the moose away. In fact, when I cracked the door to get a peek, I could see the larger dog was now sitting over on the porch, his hackles up, acting tough. The smaller one was barking somewhere on the other side of the moose, probably behind some trees. I wanted to yell at the dogs to shut up but one of the moose was now within kicking distance of the thin outhouse door.
For 10 minutes, I stood in there, alternately holding my breath, listening, peeking out, trying to figure out if these were larger calves with their mother or adolescents experiencing the joy of messing with humans.
Punk teenage moose Finally, I'd seen enough and convinced myself they were old enough to be on their own. But they were still too close for me to leave the outhouse. So there I continued to wait while the dogs barked and the moose meandered 3 or so feet at a time, looked around, backtracked, grunted, took another couple of steps the other way. Eventually, they got used to the ruckus and just started eating birch saplings.
That was enough. They were still closer than I liked but I wasn't going to stand there in an outhouse all night while a couple of punk teenage moose snacked.
So I opened the door and threw the empty bucket so it landed with a clatter right behind the nearest moose. They took off into the trees, maybe 20 feet before they felt safe.
I stuck my head out of the outhouse and called the dogs. Both of them came over from the porch, wary, even scared, as if that thing in the outhouse wearing the headlamp and talking with my voice might be some kind of undercover moose.
Then the three of us made the short walk back to the cabin, where the dogs continued to laze about in front of the fire and I finally got started on those dishes.
That Manhattan rental is starting to look better and better.
Cross linking to earlier post:
Trapped in the outhouse by moose
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3403089/posts
This is awful! Every time we’ve rented it’s been in a somewhat remote place with unpaved roads. We’ve rented again in August in an area that is no longer meadow but woods (when I was a kid St. George Peninsula was farmland).
Where is a pack of timberwolves when you need them? Of course, that could be problematic too.
Sounds like a song title. “Here I am, trapped in the outhouse by moose.”
Check out this video. Moose kills a man.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qe5wVeEChTw
Moose are pretty safe. Mothers with calves can be a little aggressive, but they're more likely to stare you down while the calf gets clear, then moose off into the woods - I've had that happen while driving on woods roads, several times.
They used to wander through our fishing camps, occasionally. Just a nuisance (moose-ance?). Biggest concern there is that they might step on you, if you're in a sleeping bag. Bulls are *big* animals. Otherwise, they just stepped on things, and occasionally knocked things over. And "moose droppings" are no fun to step in. Think cows, only more of it.
Enjoy Maine! Go there in the winter. If you still like it, you'll be OK. Don't judge it based on May-Sept...it's the most beautiful place in the world, then. But from Oct-April, Mother Nature gets even.
This time of the year until end of April is probably the worst. Snow is all dirty and black, and you've been looking at it for 4+ months, anyway, so you're sick of it. Things start to thaw out, so "mud season" turns the ground into soup, and frost heaves and potholes, along with plow damage, turn some roads into cowpaths, roughly defined by a couple of ditches (or snowbanks...). April usually brings the biggest, and worst storms....feet of snow, on occasion, and it's the heavy, wet kind that is hard to plow and backbreaking to shovel.
I don't miss it. Life in the south is easier.
Oh, dear. That bad, eh? I actually like winter and snow and planned to make sure I bought on a paved road. We’ll see.
Thanks! I know you’re all trying to cheer me up, lol.
Like I said - take a look at the road in the spring.
If you're there outside of the spring, look for potholes filled with coldpatch (asphalt). Usually, the roads will break up in the same places, every year, and will have patches on top of patches. (I used work on road repair for the town when I was in High School, I've shoveled LOTS of coldpatch) Some places will have orange "BUMP" signs still posted - just not taken down - where the frost heaves come up in the spring.
We had a frost heave in front of my house. Some years, Dad would have a collection of mufflers that got knocked off.
If you like winter, you'll get plenty of it, up there. This year wasn't too bad, buddy of mine said that he had the first "Brown Christmas" in 15 years where he was, this winter. No snow at all for the holiday, and "Not Too Much" this year.
Of course, last year, my hometown set a record for snowfall (I can't imagine what that looked like, having seen snowdrifts up to the telephone wires.....). So, you takes what you gets. :-)
Other than the blackflies, and you build up an immunity to those, summers in Maine are perfect. And, there's nothing like a crystal clear day in the winter, after a big blizzard goes through. The sky gets so blue as to almost be black. The coldest (20, 30, 40 below), clearest nights in the winter quite often had the Northern Lights - I don't know why, weather shouldn't matter, but that's when I would see them. When it's dead quiet and still, you can hear them crackling. And the night sky is much prettier than where I live now - there's not all of the light pollution.
It's a place of great beauty, and sheer misery, oftentimes in the same day. :-)
But, I still don't miss living there year-round. Nicer just to go up when the weather is good.
Mostly in auto accidents. Full grown moose weigh in excess of 1/2 a ton so they are a bitch to hit at 60 mph.
lol! I love that flick.
I was waiting on that comment.
Lovely description. I know you’re warning me but it just makes me long to be there.
I’m going through all the houses for sale and worry about the heat arrangements. I finally found a house that had a fireplace (in the kitchen, my dream) as well as the good ole pot belly that is a standard. Most of them seem to have propane gas and wells for water.
All photos of the front hall show large amounts of mufflers.
*Ah-hem*
Been charged twice, cows with young, and by one bull when my dog was a pup. Moose hate dogs! Two months ago a bull moose charged a young man in close to where I live. He put about 12 rounds of 9mm into it before it turned away, walked off and died. Game warden said it was a lucky shot as the moose had him on the ground and would have killed him.
So yeah, they charge and are very dangerous. Used to see many more of them on my property till the wolf re-introduction killed them off. As well as the elk and deer.
Keep your distance.
Sometimes described as like hitting a brick wall on stilts.
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