Moose Encounter #3

I'm hesitant to post this story, only because I think people might  be beginning to think that I'm making these up. But I'm not. This is the town we live in. It's rare for one little boy to have 3 moose encounters in just over 2 years, but I guess they seem to find David. He's a moose-prone Alaskan, what can I say!?!

If you've read my other two stories, this one was in the middle. It wasn't as close as this time or as far away as this time, but somewhere in the middle. (Technically, we also came close here, but in comparison, it hardly seems  like an encounter.) This time was close enough that I was trying to see every move my boy made the same time I was trying to see every flinch of the moose.

So here goes.

We were out delivering birthday party invitations, and I was letting David go up to the door by himself so he felt big. I wanted to hear what he said at each door, so I would turn off the car and roll down the window a bit to hear his conversation at the door. At my friend Rebecca's house, we pulled up, and the first thing I  noticed were the nice tall snow banks all around her yard. They are about 4 feet tall, and impressive for this year of little snow and lots of warm temperatures. I was trying to remember if they had a snow blower or not to get them so tall, or if her husband just lobbed the snow up that high. So when I pulled into her driveway, I was impressed with how high the snow banks were. They ran down the driveway and in the very front, by the sidewalk.

David was waiting at the door, and I was waiting to listen to him at the door when I saw a pair of legs in my rear view mirror. On top of those legs was a huge bull moose. When I saw him later up against the house, his back rubbed just under their windows on their split level home. I would put those windows about 7 feet off the ground. Anyway, this bull moose was walking down the sidewalk, passed behind my car, and I rolled down my window and called to my boy: "David, stay where you are! Don't move!" I thought if David could hold still that the moose would keep going down the sidewalk on his merry little way.

No such luck. 

David kept looking in my direction like he couldn't quite hear me. I didn't want to do anything sudden like swing the car door and stand up, since the moose was only about 10 feet from the car and maybe 15 feet from my boy. So I was calling to him from the driver's seat through the passenger window. He finally turned all the way around and saw the moose, who had decided to stop on the side walk directly in front of the front door. The front yard is short, maybe 15-18 feet deep. David saw the moose and started moving towards the car. He took a slow step, a slow step, then three quick steps then ran. Of course I was shouting directions at David, but they were pointless. He was in his own problem solving mode and either he didn't hear me or he tuned me out while he was thinking about what to do.

David O. McKay once taught that there should be no shouting in a family unless the house is on fire. Do you think my-child-in-the-line-of-a-moose also qualifies? Because my voice was shouting. Controlled, but shouting.

The moose had turned to look at David, on the front porch, from his place on the sidewalk. Just as David took the three quick steps, the moose hefted his front hooves onto the snow bank. I think at this point, those antlers must have been reaching heaven itself. If you want to see a bull moose get bigger, watch him put his front hooves on a snow bank 4 feet tall. I was trying to see what the hair on the back of his neck was doing--surely he couldn't be scared of a little boy! I didn't see any signs of him being scared, I only saw a moose that wanted to get over the bank and into that particular yard.

David reached the driveway's corner that led to the car about the time the moose put his front hooves into the yard, and kicked his back legs over the snow bank to follow. At that point David was too small between the snow bank and the car for the moose to see him any longer from the other side. I flung open the door and hurried David into the front seat. From the safety of the car, now that both of us were inside, we watched the moose walk over a snowman without even trying and find a snack on a bush in this family's yard, inches away from where David had been standing at the front door. In fact, his antlers kept swinging over the spot on the porch where David had stood while he reached down to nibble.

Oh, and the family? A tremendous blessing that they were not home because usually in their house, when the door knocks, there's a gaggle of small children 7 and under that run to the door with their parents close behind. I'm so glad that David's knock didn't entice them to open the door to a moose on their porch!

If you ask David, he'll tell you that this time he wasn't close enough so the moose couldn't tackle him.