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Wild Life
Almost hit a moose this morning on my commute to work. I was cruising down the highway at 55mph when it came running out of the thick brush on the side of the road and up onto the highway. I braked and steered to avoid it, when it saw me and freaked out: did a complete 180, its hooves slid out from under it, and it ended up sprawled across both lanes of the narrow 2-lane highway. I came skidding to a stop so close that my bumper was nearly touching it. The moose got up and ran away into the woods.
Car-moose collisions are common in Alaska, and usually are pretty damaging to the car (and its occupants) because moose are so big and solid. Even though this one was relatively small for a moose -- about the size of a medium-sized horse -- it looked huge enough in front of the car! It was really quite spectacular to watch it do that slow-motion pirouette. Wished I'd've had my camera, although I guess I would have been too busy trying not to hit it to take a picture.
That's the closest I've come to hitting a moose in all the time I've lived in Alaska, which I suppose is a pretty good track record. Unfortunately the Fox area has a dense moose population, so I'm sure it won't be the last time. All you can do is keep an eye on the sides of the road (which I was doing, which is the only thing that enabled me to start braking in time to stop).
Lucky, the younger dog, has confirmed his reputation as perhaps the world's only fossil-sniffing dog. This morning he found a second mammoth tusk and chewed it up nicely before I rescued it from him ... and then he and Izzy found *another* fossil bone and, between them, ate most of it (to keep the other dog from getting it, I guess). I wonder if fossils are bad for dogs. For some reason it's not in the vet books.
It's intriguing to me that the dogs are so interested in 15,000-year-old bones. You would think the bones would have long since lost any sort of smell, but the dogs are fascinated by them, especially the mammoth tusks. They know an animal part when they smell one. I think I need to move my fossil collection out of the windowsill ... I would hate to come home to a wreckage of fossil parts!
Car-moose collisions are common in Alaska, and usually are pretty damaging to the car (and its occupants) because moose are so big and solid. Even though this one was relatively small for a moose -- about the size of a medium-sized horse -- it looked huge enough in front of the car! It was really quite spectacular to watch it do that slow-motion pirouette. Wished I'd've had my camera, although I guess I would have been too busy trying not to hit it to take a picture.
That's the closest I've come to hitting a moose in all the time I've lived in Alaska, which I suppose is a pretty good track record. Unfortunately the Fox area has a dense moose population, so I'm sure it won't be the last time. All you can do is keep an eye on the sides of the road (which I was doing, which is the only thing that enabled me to start braking in time to stop).
Lucky, the younger dog, has confirmed his reputation as perhaps the world's only fossil-sniffing dog. This morning he found a second mammoth tusk and chewed it up nicely before I rescued it from him ... and then he and Izzy found *another* fossil bone and, between them, ate most of it (to keep the other dog from getting it, I guess). I wonder if fossils are bad for dogs. For some reason it's not in the vet books.
It's intriguing to me that the dogs are so interested in 15,000-year-old bones. You would think the bones would have long since lost any sort of smell, but the dogs are fascinated by them, especially the mammoth tusks. They know an animal part when they smell one. I think I need to move my fossil collection out of the windowsill ... I would hate to come home to a wreckage of fossil parts!
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I've started taking the dogs for random walks in the woods in the hopes they will find me some more bones. So far they have not delivered. Dratted dogs, why am I feeding you again? ;)