Small-Town Squirrels

In a small American town a band of squirrels had become quite a problem.

The Presbyterian church called a meeting to decide what to do about their squirrel infestation. After much prayer and consideration, they concluded that the squirrels were predestined to be there, and they shouldn't interfere with God's divine will. Their resident population of squirrels grew slowly.

At the Baptist church the squirrels had taken an interest in the baptistry. The deacons met and decided to put a water-slide on the baptistry and let the squirrels drown themselves. The squirrels liked the slide and unfortunately, knew how to swim, so twice as many squirrels showed up the following week.

The Lutheran church decided that they were not in a position to harm any of God's creatures. So, they humanely trapped their squirrels and set them free near the Baptist church. Two weeks later, the squirrels were back when the Baptists took down the water-slide.

The Episcopalians tried a much more unique path by setting out pans of whiskey around their church in an effort to kill the squirrels with alcohol poisoning. Sadly, all they learned was how much damage a band of drunk squirrels can do.

But the Catholic church came up with a more creative strategy: they baptized all the squirrels and made them members of the church. Now they only see them at Christmas and Easter.

And not much was heard from the Jewish synagogue. They took the first squirrel and circumcised him. They haven't seen a squirrel since.

Alaskan Critters

The Bear Is Back

Or maybe it's a she. Either way, the neighborhood bear knocked over the trash can again last night. Trash all over the ground ... sigh. Picking up soggy trash in the rain ... double sigh.

We didn't have this problem last year, but there are bears all over the place, this summer. So the can now resides in the garage.

But the bestest part? I think the bruin was somewhere near while I was picking up the garbage ... I could hear rustling and an occasional snort, from a distance.

So I picked up trash with one hand, and a revolver* in the other. I had to get to work, and that involves going outside. Mr. Bear should have known that. :)






* It wasn't the large caliber that I preferred, but it was the one I had with me.

Bear Crashes Through Bedroom Window

Even though the local bird-cage line-slash-fishwrapper spends most of its time bashing President Trump, they still report local stories.

"Mom, Dad, there's a bear in my bedroom"

Eleven-year-old Zach Landis will never forget the sound of a black bear bursting through the double-paned window of his bedroom late Monday.

"It's hard to explain, but it's almost like a cannon burst through and hit straight past my ear," Zach said.

 

He recounted what happened from his family's South Anchorage home two days later, unscathed from the bizarre encounter.

 

Zach said he shot upright when he woke to the crash. He saw a figure the size of a grown man in his room. In the darkness and clamor, he struggled to make out what was near the foot of his bed. He watched it scratch at the walls and climb back through the window from which it entered before he could let out a scream and figure out what he had just witnessed — a bear crashing in and out of his garden-level bedroom.

 

Eleven-year-old Zach Landis was in his bedroom on June 26 when a black bear smashed through the window. He was uninjured. He is standing in the room with his mother, Alisa Landis, two days later. (Marc Lester / Alaska Dispatch News)

 

Follow the link for the whole story.

 

Four-Footed Visitor

We have one of these:

It lives outside the garage man-door.

So, yesterday morning, this happened:

with the usual resultant mess. Strangely enough, the meat scraps* were missing ... and our neighbor's can was overturned, with more trash strewn (yes, strewn) about his yard, too.


* Well-wrapped, of course. It's not been a problem before, but there are an unusual number of bears in our neighborhood, this year. They're raiding trash, bird feeders, and whatever else they can find.

One More

What's for breakfast?

Strange Visitor

Alaska Problems

We keep getting sale flyers, e-mails, and so on, saying "Spring sale! Spring's just around the corner!"  But let me show you what the 1st day of Spring looks like, up here:

 

 

 

Then there's the inevitable concern about how much snow piles up on roofs. This area has a thriving roof shoveling industry, and one or two buildings collapse every snowy winter.

 

But snow isn't the only issue:

 

This was a case of a homeowner whose efforts to remove snow from his flat-topped garage resulted in a very large pile of snow next to the structure. And of course, if you build it, they will come to check it out.

 :^)

Anchorage Wants Our Help

According to a story at www.ktuu.com:

 

Bull Moose checks whether weather has delayed delivery! Kathleen Barth - Anchorage 11-16-16

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) -

State wildlife managers want to know how many moose roam the Anchorage bowl and need your help. 

Aerial counts don't always work because of bad weather conditions and some flight restrictions, which is why Fish and Game biologists are testing a new method of surveying moose on the ground, and that's where the public comes in. 

On February 26 and 27, citizens are invited to report moose sightings within the Anchorage bowl. 

Researchers will collect DNA samples from as many moose as they can. A small skin biopsy will be taken with darts designed to lightly strike a moose, collect a sample in the tip, and fall to the ground. 

Sightings may be reported by phoning 267-2253, texting 782-5051, or online at the department website. 

Reports should include moose location, time of the sighting, and number of moose seen at a given location.

 

 

The numbers usually provided, anecdotally, say the City of Anchorage is home to roughly 800 moose in the summer months. That number increases to some 1,200 in winter, due to scarcity of vegetation in the mountains. Moose then move into town seeking a greater food supply.

Remembering Buzzwinkle, the Drunken Moose

Erik Hill / Anchorage Daily News A bull moose sporting Town Square holiday lights settles in at Bernie's Bungalow Lounge Tuesday November 27, 2007 downtown.

 

Every autumn in recent years our boreal neighbors in Sweden and Norway have regaled the rest of the world with tales of drunken moose. In most of the stories, the moose have gotten smashed eating fermented apples, the active ingredient in applejack.

 

Recently, near Stockholm, a "mob of boozed-up moose" threatened a homeowner, daring him to step into his own garden. The online magazine Slate called the news brief issued by Radio Sweden "the best thing on the Internet today."

Sweden and Norway have lots of moose and loads of apple trees. Alaska has fewer moose and a paucity of fruit trees, but where the two entities overlap -- in Anchorage, for example -- reports of drunken moose also abound. Alaska's best-known public inebriate may have been Buzzwinkle.

 

Making a spectacle of himself

 

Buzzwinkle's name was coined by Anchorage Daily News columnist Julia O'Malley in November 2007 after a moose downed a few too many fermented crabapple cocktails in the courtyard of Bernie's Bungalow Lounge, across the street from the Nordstrom store in downtown Anchorage. When O'Malley and I arrived, the massive bull was standing rigid, knees locked, with his wide-set eyes fixed in an inscrutable expression. A long strand of small white lights tangled in his antlers attested to some careless twig noshing in Town Square earlier in the day. The most obvious sign of life was the cloud of vapor venting from his nostrils with every deep exhalation. He was blotto, and he knew it. Too large to fit in a taxi, we left him to sleep it off in the fenced courtyard. After he revived, Anchorage Daily News photographer Erik Hill captured Buzzwinkle's unapologetic, nonchalant departure -- party lights still firmly affixed. [Above - Ed.]

 

... In his prime Buzzwinkle sported a rack more than 60 inches wide and stood over six feet tall. Because Anchorage residents often enliven Alaska's dark nights by stringing lights on shrubs, and shrubs attract moose, bulls frequently wrap strands of the lights around their antlers. Buzzwinkle was no exception. In fact, his massive antlers accidently disassembled more than their share of holiday lights.

 

Read the whole article here.

Insert Witty Headline Here

I had big plans for this morning's post. Not the run-of-the-mill "finally Friday is here" or "what a long week it's been", but something significant.

 

Alas and alack, my muse has deserted me.

 

The only thing of significance, this morning, is that the moose going walkabout in yesterday afternoon's post has adopted the community mailbox as his own.

 

Seriously.

 

He hunkered down in the yard across the road from the mailboxes, and huffed, snorted, and harrumphed at anyone who might have thought about retrieving their mail.

 

1,200 pounds of bull moose with what looked to be third-year antlers has certainly been around long enough to know what he wants, and how to defend it.

 

So we exercised the better part of valor, and allowed as how the mail will still be there today when I get home from work.

 

Mr. Moose wins this round.

And Speaking of Moosey Thursday

... the neighbor was out for a walk, this afternoon.

Click to enlarge

A Moosey Kind of Thursday

Visitor Spoke With Forked ... Footprints

When I was leaving work this morning, I noticed some fresh prints which were made sometime after I'd gotten there.

Those are my tracks in, and back out again, and just to the right & bottom center ...

is the the evidence of the large, four-legged critter who crossed my path.

Didn't see Mr. or Ms. Moose, though.

Saturday: A.M. Potpourri

Yesterday morning, it was 26°, today it's 29. AccuHunch says it will be warmer today, going all the way up to 49. Heat wave!

* * * * *

I'm not sure what our agenda is this morning, 'cause my wife hasn't told me yet. Heh. But it will include a trip to Sportsman's Warehouse and Cabela's, so there's that. Any trip that involves those two stores makes it a good one. :)

Let's see ... I'm going to mount a new, motion-activated/dusk-to-dawn light above the man-door on the garage.

We're going to blow more leaves out of the driveway. I'm convinced this round of ground cover comes from the neighbor's yards, because we certainly cleaned up ours, last week. Amirite?

There have been six car/moose collisions in the last week, and a few bears crossing the roads as well, all within a few miles of us. It's looking more and more like we'll finally have a decent (read snowy) winter this year.

Older Daughter is at a local oil-change place, and they apparently have free Wi-Fi while she waits. She's blowing up my phone with funny pictures and jokes while I'm trying to type.

The sun will be coming up behind the mountains any minute now, and melt some of the frost. I doubt the roads are slick, though; we haven't had enough sub-freezing weather to get the ground cold. Yet.

And now I hear footy-steps in the other room, so our departure is imminent.

All y'all stay safe out there, hear? Thanks for stopping by.

Go-Chair Vs. Bullwinkle

You know how I'm always saying that we need to keep our distance from the wildlife here?
Especially bears and moose?

This guy in the electric wheelchair chased the bull all the way across our parking lot, about an hour ago:

Bear Patrol

For those of you who hadn't read it or seen it, there was a black bear (in the 200 to 230 lb range) wandering around downtown Anchorage a few days ago.

APD has release dash-cam video. So here, for your viewing pleasure (and a hat-tip to Griz Alaska for bringing it to my attention):

Spotted along the highway on the Kenai Peninsula. Fairly common sight, in these parts.

Friday Wrap-Up

It was 41° F. when I left home this morning. It's a few degrees warmer in Anchorage, but only a few. It's that time of year when the overnight temps move closer to the freezing mark, and the first frost of the year might not be far away.

But the days are still warm, and Anchorage set new high temp records in the past week, peaking in the mid- to upper-70s. Today, AccuHunch opines that the high will be 70 again in the big city, but probably more like mid-60s at home. Heading back to our home in the mountains and woods at the end of the workday is such a joy. :)

* * * * *

Another plane story, but with a happier ending: K2 plane makes safe landing on Parks Highway with six aboard

A K2 Aviation plane sits on the Parks Highway near Mile 151 on Wednesday evening after the pilot made what K2 representative called a “precautionary landing” on the highway. No one was injured and the plane wasn’t damaged. (Emily Kuske)

A K2 Aviation de Havilland Beaver with six people on board landed safely on the Parks Highway near Byers Lake on Wednesday night, authorities say. 

A K2 representative said the pilot made "a precautionary landing" around Mile 151 of the highway, the state's main artery between Anchorage and Fairbanks. 

"Everybody's fine," Garett Lawrence, K2's assistant station operations manager, said by phone from the company's Talkeetna headquarters on Thursday morning. "Pretty uneventful."

Lawrence declined to say what prompted the pilot's decision to land.

* * * * *

State Troopers and NTSB investigators are having trouble accessing the crash sites from the two planes which collided earlier this week. The forest is quite dense, and terrain is rough.

* * * * *

That's all the news of wide interest, so I'm going to end with this viewer-submitted photo:

The photographer called it "a moose with a camera", but we're not sure whether it's that ... or just another wannabe, readying itself for an extreme close-up. Regardless, I'm not sure that's its best side, either.

TBT: Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center

From 2012:

My friend Sandi S. takes frequent trips to out-of-the-way places here in Alaska, where that's really saying something, and comes back with awesome photographs.

However, this time she went somewhere close by - the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center, only 40 miles from Anchorage, and got some great shots. Here are a few she passed along this morning:

Grizzly cub

Moosey!

Hey - who YOU looking at?

I wonder what's up here?

Is that lunch I smell?

 The Center is a fenced-in road which meanders through the wide-open places in which the animals go about living. Only the spectators are behind wires. :)

But that allows them to get within a few yards of the critters, and allows for some spectacular chances at good photos.