Moose Battles

It's after midnight and Matt and I are cuddled up on the couch when we hear a flowerpot crash to the ground.  I jump up and run to the window and there is a huge cow moose in the middle of my garden with a big leaf of kale in its mouth.  I run outside and I'm yelling at her, but she doesn't want to leave... there are too many tasty treats in the garden.  I pick up some wood chips from the path and throw them at her, but instead of scaring here away, it looks like she wants to charge me.  Matt comes out and the two of us convince her to move on.  But she runs around the house and comes back into the garden behind the house!  She really wants our goods!  I put a ladder across the back to keep her from going in that way, and pull out the fencing we had up over the winter to keep them away from the fruit trees.  Matt is trying to help me but he is quite sleepy and the whole thing is starting to feel a bit like a bad dream.  

The moose seems to be gone, so we go off to bed.  I toss and turn, thinking about my precious vegetables and all the hard work we have put into them.  Just after we drift off to sleep, we are woken up by a loud CRASH... the ladder in the back, the moose had returned!  She is scared off  by the crash and she runs off, so I go out and put the ladder back up.  I see that she has eaten all the cabbage in the back, unfenced garden.  What was I thinking, planting it there?  We just have not seen any moose this year or last, and we are letting our guard down.  

I go back to bed but I sleep with one ear open, listening for any sound of the moose returning.  In the morning we get up and with sleepy, disbelieving eyes, we see that she got through our shoddy late-night fence.  She had a gourmet late-night buffet of beet greens, chard, kale, cabbage, broccoli, lettuce, and even young birch leaves.  I wimper and Matt hugs me.  I pick up the tiny young beets she so carelessly left on the ground.  I right the garlic she trampled on her way to the cabbage.  What about our sauerkraut we were so looking forward to making this year?  What will Matt eat for breakfast?  I feel sick to my stomach.  How could we let this happen?  

Only in Alaska do we have to deal with the world's largest herbivore.  One that can wipe out an entire garden in a late-night snack.  It takes an eight foot high fence, minimum to keep these guys out.  And it has to be strong, as we found out.  We did discover what moose don't like to eat, however.  Mustard greens, tomatoes, potatoes, carrots, squash plants, herbs, and parsnips.  And we were very lucky she didn't find the fruit trees.  Today, construction of the fence continues, and this time, she is not getting through!