The truck was empty so Jeff shut the auger off just as his wife Elaine came his way. It was late winter and she had her cross-country skis on, dodging the loose gravel that showed through the snow. Flora, the German shepherd puppy, ran alongside.
“Finally finished cleaning the Thompson’s lentil seed,” Jeff said.
“Great,” Elaine says. “I don’t have time to drive to the trails at the park, so I’ll blaze my own trail out here before my ten o’clock meeting.”
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“You’ll want sunglasses, with that sun glaring off the snow.”
Elaine pulled an old pair of sunglasses out of her windbreaker and held them up triumphantly.
Then Jeff looked worried. “Maybe don’t go over to the east slough. Those moose are still hanging around over there. They can be dangerous.”
Elaine nodded. “I don’t want to tangle with them. I’ll stay in the field. And I have my phone.”
Jeff wasn’t sure how a phone would help in a fight against a full-sized moose, but he figured if she stayed in sight of the yard, she’d be okay.
“I’ll be careful,” Elaine said. She set off between two bins at the edge of the yard, yelling as she went. “Flora! Get off my skis!”
Jeff enjoyed seeing moose run through fields or lurk behind bushes. But this winter they’d taken it too far.
A mother moose and her two calves had been near the yard for weeks. They’d found the small piles of spilt grain near the cleaning plant and become regular customers. Flora and their older dog, Buddy, did their best to scare them off, but they weren’t effective.
Elaine didn’t see any moose that morning, but that afternoon Jeff watched the trio walk right up to the bins around the cleaning plant. He called his father and Mark, the farm employee, out to look.
“Snack time,” Mark said.
“They love lentil screenings,” Dale said.
Flora tore out of the shop, almost knocking Mark over, running headlong at the moose, barking at full volume.
“You’ll get hurt,” Dale called.
Flora got closer and the mother moose gave her a warning stare.
“I’m glad she’s not looking at me like that,” Mark said.
Flora stepped closer. The closest calf raised the hair on the back of its neck and frowned.
“Flora! Come!” Dale yelled.
The calf lowered its head and pawed at the ground.
“Flora!”
To everyone’s surprise, Flora followed Dale’s direction and came back to the shop, whimpering.
“Those damn moose could really hurt a dog. Or a cat.”
“Or a kid,” Jeff said. “Elaine will barely let Connor and Jenny out of her sight these days.”
Mark smacked his lips. “Moose stew. Moose short ribs. Moose burgers. Moose roast …”
Jeff rolled his eyes. “There’s laws about that. I’d better call the conservation officer.”
Jeff called, but the conservation officer had a full schedule. “Lots of moose and deer around,” he said. “Stop in and pick up some rubber bullets to scare them off.”
Jeff did that the next day when he was taking Connor to hockey practice. But he wasn’t thrilled about using them. He knew a rubber bullet wouldn’t do much damage to a full-sized moose. But still.
A month earlier Jeff had shot a porcupine that Flora and Buddy had been barking at for days. Something had to change, before the dogs got hurt. He’d looked it up. It was legal to shoot a nuisance porcupine on your own land. Then he’d searched for photos of other dogs stuck by porcupine quills, to steel up for the hunt.
But when Jeff got close to the porcupine, he couldn’t pull the trigger. Sure, porcupines were dangerous, but this one rolled from side to side when it walked, reminding Jeff of a happy cartoon character. He’d watched it waddle until his phone rang.
“You need help out there?” Mark was phoning from the middle of the farmyard.
“Just making sure I have a good shot,” Jeff said.
He’d finally done it. But he didn’t enjoy it.
Jeff was not excited about shooting a moose. He’d seen them as majestic animals, roaming the countryside looking aloof and self-important.
But these moose were putting his family in danger. They were keeping his wife from her favourite ski areas and stopping his kids from playing in the snow. They could hurt the dogs. Up close, they were scruffy and ugly. And they were right behind the shed.
Jeff set out for them with his rifle, keeping his distance from the corner. Soon he was only 20 feet away. The mother looked him in the eye, and Jeff could’ve sworn he heard her snort.
He squeezed the trigger, and the moose jumped. She’d caught it in the side, just where he’d aimed. She paused, but then looked Jeff in the eye and took a slow step toward him.
Jeff backed up slowly, trying not to run with the moose still watching. Safely back in the shop, he called the conservation officer again.
In a couple of hours, Jeff heard the conservation officer drive into the yard and park. Jeff, Dale, and Mark watched from the shop door as the officer stepped out of his truck and looked around. When the man realized the three moose were still by the shed, only about 20 feet from him, he jumped back into the truck and drove closer to the shop.
“That mother moose is laughing at him,” Mark said.
“I’ve never seen moose so comfortable in a farmyard,” the officer said, getting out of his truck looking sheepish. “And those are two-year-old calves. They should be living on their own.”
“Get a job,” Mark mocked the calves, but they paid no attention.
“We’d better move on to option two,” the conservation officer said.
He handed Jeff a small plastic flare gun. “Try it at night,” he said. “The bright lights should scare them.”
After supper, when Elaine spotted the moose in the evergreen trees behind the house, Jeff took the flare gun outside.
The shot sounded like fireworks going off. Then a sparkler like an oversized birthday candle shot lights around the moose’s heads.
“I think the mother is smiling at you,” Elaine said. “She must like the lights.”
Two days later, the conservation officer came out with a snowmobile in the back of his truck.
“Option three,” he said.
From his vantage point, Jeff thought herding three moose with a snowmobile looked slightly easier than herding cats, but much less elegant. Once the moose understood they were being driven out, they took off at a run and didn’t look back.
“They’re about four miles east,” the conservation officer said when he got back to the yard. “I think they’ll stay there. There’s a nice safe area for them.”
The next morning, Jeff was outside starting the auger to move some peas into the cleaning plant. Chaff and snow had blown over the prints the moose had left in the snow, leaving no sign they’d ever been there. Flora ran around, looking for something to bark at. Jeff felt safe in the yard, finally, but a small part of him sort of hoped the moose would make their way back home.
