Melanie and her old friend, Moose Phillipia

One day when Melanie was seven, I heard a rather clattery knock up on the door. I answered it and was stunned to see a moose calf standing there."Hi!" The moose calf greeted. "I'm Phillipia, can Melanie come out and play?" This question put me in a bad spot, but I had to answer truthfully,"No!" I answered "I do not allow my daughters to play with moose!" Dejected and offended, the moose turned and walked away. Later that afternoon, when I was not looking, Melanie snuck out and she and the moose went off to play. They did this frequently and often. No matter how many times I chastised them – and I chastised them both! Today as we were returning to the house from getting coffee at Metro Cafe, Melanie suddenly shrieked , "Look! It's Phillipia!"sure enough, it was. I was very surprised. I did not know a moose could live this many years. 

Text added at 6:39 PM. The Squarespace nightmare continues. Note: I did not realize that Squarespace had stripped the photo out of the original post until just now, when I finally got a chance to add the text back in, due to the fact that Squarespace will almost always fail to post both text and picture at the same time. 

Saturday morning backyard moose

Sent from my iPhone

Something mysterious and unknown up in the bare branches

When I came home from photographing the live moose and then the dead moose, I found a copper moose standing on my front porch along with three boys who poured out the door to greet me. I had not seen them since the beginning of the week, but their mom had brought Margie home from babysitting and they had come along."What's that?" Kalib shouted, pointing up into the branches. I looked up, half expecting to see the same eagle I had seen down at the river but all I saw was bare tree branches. 

Note: As I took this picture at home near my computer, I bypassed the Squarespace app due to all the problems, headaches, delays and wasted time Squarespace has been inflicting upon me. It should be noted, however, that doing it this way takes considerable more time than it takes with the app - when the app actually works.

The moose I came upon shortly afterward - something no good happened here

Right after I took the previous picture of the moose who posed for me at the side of the road, I pulled off into the tiny parking lot at the bridge over the Little Su and made the previous post. I was just about to leave when this sight caught my eye, a short distance from the parking lot. I don't know what the story is here, but given that the rib cage is fully intact, which would not be the case if someone had properly butchered a moose, taken legally or poached, and that whoever left this here as litter alongside a public parking lot has such little consideration for not only his or her fellow citizens but the animal itself, it certainly doesn't look good. I am still in the parking lot looking out over the Little Su River. A bald eagle sits on a cottonwood branch on the other side, maybe 150 yards away from me. I would photograph the eagle, but with the iPhone at this distance there is really no point. A magpie has landed on the moose rib cage and is picking at it. I would get back out and try to go photograph the magpie but it would fly away before I could get close enough. I might as well let it eat in peace.

The daily moose – time for a resurrection?

The daily moose – time for a resurrection? Last winter on my blog I ran a series I semi-jokingly called, "the daily moose." Of course, I did not post a moose picture every single day, but once the snow set in and especially as it deepened I sometimes came pretty close. If I didn't post one, odds were I still saw one but just couldn't get a decent photograph, or if I did, I didn't have the time to process and post it the old-fashioned, pre-Instagram, way. I don't know if I will continue the feature this winter. I am now addicted to blogging by iPhone – as troublesome and frustrating as buggy Squarespace is now making it – and it can be pretty difficult to get close enough to a moose with an iPhone to get a decent picture. But, sometimes a moose might just walk up to the side of a road free of traffic for the moment and shout out to me, "Hey Bill! Stop and I will pose for you." In such cases, I will accept the invitation and post the moose. 

Please note: To any reader who may have stopped by during the past hour and 15 minutes only to find a partial text post and no picture, this is, once again, the malfunction the iPhone app of my bloghost, Squarespace. Once again, it has become impossible. I am now in the process of patching up the damage inflicted by Squarespace to this post, which I had followed shortly with another, rather ironic, post of picture I came upon right after I had originally posted the version of this that misfired here.

Well, Margie has come home and Lavina and the boys came along for a visit. Margie just poked her head into my office. "Dinner's ready," she said. I will wait until after to undo the damage Squarespace did to the followup moose post.