Orien Family News

My friend Catherine has turned into a blogger. I like to read her blogs as they are entertaining as well as thought provoking. She wrote one recently about an Alaska adventure their family had a couple years ago. I figured if she could reach back in time and have some fun re-telling the story, I could as well. After all, I have had some pretty crazy adventures up here in the land of the frozen north where anything can happen and usually does.

To preface this tale, let me say this. At the time I am having an adventure, I often cannot see it that way nor would I describe it as an adventure as I am not real fond of what is happening. Afterall, adventures are traditionally thought of as fun. Well, my family decided years ago that when some bad things happen we would call them adventures as opposed to calamities or mishaps or dirty rotten luck. It makes them a bit more palatable. And eventually after enough time has passed I really am able to think of that time as an adventure, at least most of the time. Some things that have happened to me will always be just plain bad dirty rotten luck!

The particular Alaskan adventure began in the spring of the year when the snow is almost gone and the warmth and smell of sunshine fills me with exhilerating joy after a long dark winter. I love to throw open the windows and let that warmth and smell filter into the house and my soul. Spring is here. Ummm. Summer is coming! It’s a heel kicking feeling. Afterall, summer is the reason we live here…but that’s a subject for a different blog.

We live on a treed acre and a half lot on the hillside so moose often walk through our yard. The moose in question came wandering by before we had “Dusty the Dog” to bark like crazy and run him off. This moose wasn’t the biggest guy I had ever seen. In fact he was a bit on the small side for a moose and even looked kind of scrawny. He stood at the edge of the grass next to the woods for a long time. Each time I looked he was there…not typical moose behavior. All day he stood there. Later in the day I could see he was lying down. The next morning it was obvious he was dead, cause unknown.

We wondered what to do with him. That was the beginning of the adventure…

I spent a frustrating week (that’s seven, count ‘em, 7 very warm days) on the telephone with every agency in town that I could think of that might come get this moose off my front lawn. Days passed with no luck in that regard as we endured the pungent and horrific smell of that poor oozing dead moose wafting indoors and making us quite nauseated. You would think there is a government agency whose job it is to fetch dead moose off people’s front yard and properly dispose of them. Unh uh. Nope. Of that I can testify.
Fish and Game and all the rest of them said, “Not our problem”.
“Can I bring it to the dump?”
“No, that is not possible” they said.
“Well, can I bring it to city, state or federal land and dump it?”
“No way” was the emphatic answer.
“What do I do?” I cried.
A shoulder shrug was all I got.

To the rescue came a friend with an idea. She called the Anchorage Daily News and reporter Sheila Toome published a front page article and photo asking the public the question of what to do if a moose drops dead in your yard. Now that got results. The next day at 4:00 AM my telephone started ringing. Newspapers from all across the country picked up the story and folks from Florida were the first to call me with advice. Calls came in rapid fire all day from hundreds of folks with how to handle that dead moose.
“Cover it with bags of lime” was the most popular answer.

Because of her article in the paper, good news came in a phone call from reporter Toome. She obtained permission from the City Dump for me to bring the dead moose there. Unfortunately there was no way for me to get it there. I called several enterprises to get an estimate on what they might charge me to take my dead moose to the dump. “$350 was the answer”. Whew! It didn’t stink that bad!

Finally a young man called who was the answer to my dilemna. He said he had just gotten into town and needed rent money. He said he would take away that stinky moose for a mere $50.
“Yippeee Skippee I told him. You’re hired. Come quickly.”

He and his girlfriend arrived shortly after in his Subaru Brat already half filled with a huge tool box. I looked at the space left in his very small pick-up and tried to compare with my eyes the size of the space and the size of the dead moose. I couldn’t imagine how it would fit.

While I called the dump to let them know the moose in question was on the way to its final resting place, the young man and his girlfriend loaded the moose into their truck. The last I saw of them was a sight I will never get out of my mind. Mr. Moose was indeed much too large for that small truck. The best they could do was get most of the body inside the back end of the small truck. As they hurried off with their shirts pulled up over their faces to cover their noses, Mr. Moose had his head hanging out the back of the truck and bounced helplessly on the road as the truck drove away. As happy as I was to see him go, I was sad to see his demise end in such an undignified and almost hilarious way.

I learned a valuable lesson with this adventure. If a moose ever dies in my yard again I am going to save myself a lot of trouble and money. I will hook a chain around his legs and drag him out to the side of the main road and let the highway department deal with him. (After dark of course.)

P.S. The reason I entitled this blog “The Moose Lady” is because a subsequent newspaper article 2 days later gave a follow-up of what happened to the moose. I got my 15 minutes of fame and was recognized at a stop sign in downtown by a pedestrian who looked up and saw me and said outloud, “It’s the Moose Lady!”. It wasn’t exactly the notoriety I had hoped for in my 15 minutes of fame, but at least I got it!