is there any more pie?

photo from alaskapublic.org

Since 1971 I’ve looked for a moose in the shady ponds by the Pack River Bridge every time we’ve driven to town.  There have been three–three–spottings.  Always a thrill.

I think I saw one in a distant field while I was driving through Yellowstone years ago, one of those, “Wait! Wow!  Was that a moose?” as we sped past at 40 mph.

That was it for moose.

Until Saturday.

Banjo Man and I had headed east to Clark Fork to return the Funny Grandson’s library books and get ice cream at the Pantry.  Son #1 was entertaining friends at the house and their son and the FG were making friends with each other on the beach.  We did our errands and ate our “baby” ice cream cones and resisted buying freshly baked bread and pastries before heading back to the lake to grill hot dogs and hamburgers for the younger generations.

Clark Fork has very little cell phone coverage, so as we were a mile or two from the town and heading home, my phone pinged.  There was a text message from Dancing Mandolin Player answering a question I’d sent about seating at the night’s big fundraiser for the community center.  I began to read it out loud to Banjo Man, who loves to listen to anything newsy or informative from my little electronic world.

And that’s what saved us.  Banjo Man had both hands on the wheel and his full attention on the road (as opposed to his typical admiring the gorgeous scenery or looking for herons out of his side of the car).

Next thing I knew–as I was describing DMP’s opinion of her raspberry-filled kitchen–the brakes squealed, Banjo Man yelled and I looked up to see our windshield filled with moose.

We braced ourselves for the crash.  It was going to be bad.

A car coming in the opposite direction braked and squealed as the panicked animal somehow escaped hitting our car and ran across theirs.  And then it was gone, into the wetlands of the Clark Fork River slough.

We were all very, very lucky.  A second either way would have meant disaster.  A female moose can weigh between 440 and 790 pounds and can stand 7 feet tall at the shoulder.

photo from gohunt.com

You wouldn’t expect a moose to run out of a wooded ditch on the mountain side of the road.  Not at 1:30 in the afternoon.  But…when you’re driving in this part of the country you have to be ready for anything at any time.

So no more gawking at the lake or the river.  Hands on the wheel!  Eyes on the road!

We’re not going to press our luck.

They come in a gang of a dozen.  Or a little group of three.  Or eleven of them with five goslings.

They poop on my beach.  Massive amounts of poop, people!  I’m not talking about the normal byproducts of living with nature in a beautiful lakeside area.  I’m talking cesspool here.   A place where no one would dare go barefoot.  Ever.

I bought a leaf rake for clearing a path through it.  And I moved the beach chairs down close to the water to block the geese from stepping on the beach.  I didn’t remember this problem ever happening like this before, so I had to google “how to repel geese”.  I found very few solutions.

This year the people in town, at the City Beach, have hired a man with Border Collies to patrol their beach and large grassy lawn.  I wonder if that’s working.

My neighbors down the lake said they get up at 4 AM and “shoot” the geese with plastic balls via slingshots.  The geese aren’t injured, of course, but they do slowly waddle back into the lake.  This neighbor has a large green lawn, a prime goose-dining area.  I figure they eat there and swim over to my rocky beach to poop.

I’m not anti-goose.  But with 148 square miles of lake for them to cruise, I just wish they’d poop elsewhere.  At least in June, July and August.

One of the articles I read said to decorate the beach with shiny Mylar waving things, like pinwheels.  So I went to the Dollar Store and bought what little stuff I could find.  The next morning I woke up at 4:45, needing to get the beach goose-proof before they made their morning visit.

Believe it or not, I think this might be working, despite it looking like the aftermath of a drunken luau.

I’ll keep you posted.

One afternoon last week I was down at the beach.

The floods brought a whole lot of mess and driftwood to our shore.

It actually looks a lot worse than this.  And more wood–of all sizes–shows up every day.  I need Banjo Man and the Funny Grandson to help with this project.

Anyway, I was down at the beach doing some raking and tossing wood into a burn pile when I decided to call Banjo Man and tell him all about it.  I sat down on a log and proceeded to chat until I realized I was sitting on something that didn’t feel like wood.

I’d sat on my sunglasses.  Prescription sunglasses.  Not that the sun was out, but they were tucked in the pocket of my raincoat just in case something bright and yellow broke through the clouds.

That night I tried to glue them, but I have no glue skills.  How I got through elementary school without good glue techniques I’ll never know, but the Gorilla Glue didn’t dry fast enough and was a mess.  I went to the hardware store the next morning and bought Super Glue.  That worked, but there was more smearing and I came dangerously close to gluing three fingers together.

In the end, blue electrical tape was a big help.

But the upside to this was that it forced me to make an eye appointment, something I’d been putting off for, uh, a few years despite knowing I needed new glasses.  And the optometrist of choice, Dr. Julie, had a cancellation the next day.  How lucky was that?  I had to buy three new pairs of glasses, but I was long overdue.

To celebrate I went to Pizza Hut and ordered a little personal pan pizza to take home with me.  And while I was waiting I started reading a wonderful new book, THE LOST HUSBAND, by Katherine Center.

It really was a fantastic afternoon.  Happiness is a slice of pepperoni pizza and a good book.