The Moose is in the Mire

Keri and his friend Larry have been trying to get a moose since they got here. But the moose have been doing an even better job at hiding. Finally, with hunting season almost done (it finished the end of February, which happened to be on a Sunday), they made one last ditch effort to bring home the bacon—in moose meat.

The last Saturday of the month, those two left early in the morning, and they were gone for almost 12 hours. If we’d been almost anywhere else on the continent, I would have been suspicious of them hanging out at a local diner laughing it up, and then putting on quite an act when they came home empty handed. But we have no diner. Or movie theater. Or mall. Or library. Or anywhere else that one might go to pass the time. Besides—no one can fake the exhaustion they had. When they returned, Larry went to bed for two days. His back had given out on him. And Keri was a wreck. And they were both frozen. They’d shot a moose, but it took off into the bushes. They tracked the thing for over two miles in knee-deep snow. Sometimes, they were having to crawl through the brush. It’s amazing what spaces that animal could fit through. Finally, when it began to get dark and the wolves were coming out, they headed for home empty handed.

The next day, we were faced with quite a dilemma. Go look for the moose on the Sabbath, or keep the letter of the “Sabbath day holy” law and let meat go to waste. We decided that it would be worse to let meat go to waste. So Keri, Tanner, and Taco headed out in search of the elusive moose. (The picture is of Keri and the boys just before they left on their moose search.) Several hours later, they too returned empty-handed. They’d picked up the trail right away, and followed it easily at first. Well, easily is a bit of stretch, considering they were crawling through brush and digging through snow.

But it seems the moose gradually began to get stronger until the trail stopped. Which is good news for the moose. So we are assuming that it healed and will live a long and prosperous life—until next hunting season.