Moose Jaw - May 2009

Even though this is only about a mile up the beach from a park where several hundred people go every day, very few of them ever come this far. This was on top of a sand bar that is about 50 yards long, and 10 yards wide, and totally above the highest tides. There were no other bones around, unless they were buried in the sand. It had been there long enough for all the meat to be gone off it, but not long enough for the tendon to break, or for rodents to find it and recycle the valuable calcium content. It could have been there a year or longer. There weren't any other animal or people tracks in the area. I could have brought it home and cleaned it up, but I decided it would be cooler to leave it there for some other explorer to find. The 1-liter Diet Coke bottle is in the shot for a scale reference.

i'd love to find some moose sheds (antlers). i would wallpaper the whole house with 'em.

I know i've seen that symbol before..what is it from?

I'm a computer nerd homebody, most of the time. I'm definitely not Nature-Boy, by any means. It's pretty disgraceful, how little time I actually spend outdoors, but even I get out some. In what time I've been in the woods, I've never once found any moose antlers. I don't think they stay around for long, once they drop. I think you'd pretty much have to follow one around, or shoot him yourself. I have stumbled onto a few bear-kill carcasses, but it's generally considered a bad idea to hang around and check them out, so I quick-time my ass up the trail. You never know when they're going to come back for a snack, and they get pretty grumpy about people being around their food supply. People get mauled for a lot less. Besides which, a dead moose can have a pretty colossal stench. The combination of a potential bear attack and the smell of rotting flesh is more than enough to evaporate my curiosity in very short order.