Our Wild Life in the Great North

I grew up in rural Utah. I'm not unused to seeing deer.

I'm not one of those people that go to Yellowstone and have to stop for every chipmunk or buffalo they see.

But I must say, the amount and proximity of the wildlife in Northern Idaho is still surprising to me.

On one section of the highway from Sandpoint to Missoula, they actually have electronic signs warning people of the bighorn sheep that may be on the road. We've yet to drive past when the sheep weren't there.

Terrible picture, I know. But you get the point.

I've heard several people in our ward talk about bears getting into their garbage or glimpsing them as they bike up to the ski resort and then there are the ever-present deer. Everywhere. Do you ever get used to deer playing in the field across the street while you ride bikes with your kids? Or hopping across the road as you walk to get your kids from the bus stop? How about eating grass in the field behind your house while your kids jump on the trampoline in the backyard?

It's just a funny sight.

However, NOT as funny as what our kids practice at school.

In Utah, they always talk about the next big earthquake. "It could happen any day and we live right on the fault line." So from elementary school on, we had earthquake drills. And of course the occasional fire drill. Probably typical for most of you reading this. Nowadays, thanks to psychos, they also practice "Lock-Downs".

When the girls began school here in Sandpoint they came home one day saying they had to have "Inside Recess" that day. It wasn't snowing, so I asked them why.

Hazel: "There was a Moose Alert."

me: "What?"

Hazel: "A Moose Alert."

me: "What is a Moose Alert?"

Hazel: "It's when we can't go outside for recess because there's a moose by the school."

me: "Are you serious?"

Hazel: "Yes! The lunch ladies said that one time they saw one looking in the lunch room windows!"


About a months later, Nels forwarded me some pictures that a friend in our ward took on his way to work that morning.

Just a mama and two "babies" roaming around outside our apartment building.

Hazel came home from school that morning and told me that her teacher (who lived right down the street from us) was late getting to school that day because the mama moose was outside her front door when she needed to leave for school and when she went to the back door, one of the babies was there. :)

At Book Club, one of the ladies was talking about how that mama moose actually gave birth to those two calves in her front yard last year! :)

However, not everyone thinks this situation is as laughable as I do . . .

A couple weeks ago, the girls came home from school and told me they'd had a Moose Alert again that day and weren't able to go outside for morning recess. A minute or so later as I was thinking about it, I started chuckling. When Hazel asked me what I was laughing about I told her,

"It's just funny -- that you have Moose Alerts at your school."

H: "Why is that funny?"

M: "I don't know. It's just funny. Other kids have Fire Drills and Earthquake Drills and you guys have Moose Alerts. I think that's kind of hilarious."

H: "I don't think that's funny, Mom. Moose are very dangerous."