With the New Year comes resolution season. There are signs everywhere. Exercise equipment is on sale, fitness tech and apps are in my field of vision wherever I turn my noggin, and at the library I have been assaulted with diet and health books of every manifestation.
I, myself, am not much of a resolution maker, as I tend to have an ongoing mass of goals and to-dos that I update on a weekly, monthly, and yearly basis. However, I have no fault with the resolution crew, and admire their commitment to whatever cause they be chasing.
This year though, is different, for I made a resolution whilst I was astride my tractor in the freezing cold weather yesterday, a vow most sacred.
It's a simple oath really. The campaign between moose and human has been escalating over Christmas break. That there is even a bit of a moose issue is probably my fault as I had neglected to put my cattle panels or a tarp over the front of my hay shed this year. There's a lesson right there, if you fail to do that which you should always do regarding winter preparedness, well, Nature will swoop in a disembowel you for exhibiting any weakness.
As I had not protected my hay adequately enough, Mama and baby moose began showing up and partaking in the alfalfa buffet. At first the two animals were not very destructive. They just helped themselves to some alfalfa scraps and stood inside the barn's doorways out of the snow. I'm more than a bit of an animal lover, so I didn't mind them too much. At first.
Then they enlisted their friends the wild turkeys on their hay destruction quest. In one night the gang decided to destroy an entire bale of alfalfa and deposit droppings of post digested joy all over the place. That was a thrill to clean up.
The next shot in The Battle Of Hay Sanctity was fired late one night before Christmas as we came home in a blizzard. Our power was out and as we slid to a stop in front of the hay shed our kids went to hop out of the car to do the evening feeding. My daughter let out a bloodcurdling scream as she jumped out right in front of Mama moose's nose. The giant ruminant had resorted to intimidation.
Never one to be bullied by a Bullwinkle, I upped my defensive strategy by invoking a deterrent offense. I have miles of used greenhouse flooring, so yesterday I found myself doing a New Year's hike, and by hike I mean that I broke through waist high snow that had an ice crust on top of it so I could get to my well house. Why my well house? Well, inside that lovely building is a neat stack of all of my greenhouse flooring. My feelings of species love warmth were sapped by all that lumbering and flailing through the powder. Upon shoveling a metric ton of snow so I could open the door and dragging the fabric back to hay shed, well, lets just say that any love I had for the moose had evaporated like any warmth in my body.
Fast forward an hour or so and I had a polypropylene barrier bedecking the front of my hay shed that would make a medieval dictator smile. I lifted my husband in the bucket of our John Deere tractor so he could fence staple the flooring into place. A grander hay barrier I have yet to see. It's like a big black wall of no!! I love it!!
Last night I slept the sleep that only a person of moose alfalfa deprivation can enjoy. My hay has stayed completely untouched, only to be enjoyed by the animals that I purchased it for. Today, as I drove to work, I am reasonably sure that one of the wild turkeys flipped me the bird, but I care not, for my hay shed wasn't being violated.
Tonight when I came home, I smiled as I drove past the petroleum by-product wall of dried grass protection. I have to say I was feeling pretty smug. It was when I got out of the car I realized that the moose have upped the rules of the game, for right in my carport, just feet from my backdoor was this:
They are stalking me now, plotting their revenge. In fact, as I write this I am reasonably sure, based on the way that the hair on the back of my neck is reaching towards the stars, that mama moose is staring at me through my bedroom window. Therein lies the source of my resolution. I vow to survive this moose intimation campaign. They may win a few battles here and there, but I resolve to win the war.
And as always, all of the images in this post were taken on the author's not terrified yet slightly wanting a moose restraining order iPhone.
