I'm being taunted by a moose...

Every morning, first thing after we wake up, I take Ripley outside to pee while Andy takes a shower.  Lately I've been terrified joking that a moose will be in the yard greeting us when I take Ripley out in the dark in my sweats.  We (and our next door neighbors) have the only unfenced yards in the neighborhood, and our neighbors' almost foot-tall grass seems like appealing moose grub to me.  Three days a week, I drive home from work to have lunch with Ripley (a.k.a. let him out to pee and sit on the couch with him while he watches me eat something).  Basically all this means that I spend a lot of time outside in our crappy, tiny yard.

When I came home for lunch on Friday, I found this:

Now, I know it looks like someone spilled a box of junior mints in the grass, but even from my limited time up here, I can confidently identify that pile as "moose poop."  

Of course, this has me absolutely terrified, because now my totally irrational fears about moose being in our yard has been justified and I'm scared to go out in the yard in the dark.  Andy spent a good portion of Friday telling me it was a fluke and nothing to worry about.  So, I tried to relax.  

On Friday night, while whining about there being no snow (I love snow, I'm excited about it, and every day that it's 30 degrees outside and NOT snowing is sad to me), I also started whining about not seeing northern lights.  It's been all over the paper this week that the northern lights have been putting on spectacular displays in Alaska and we've either slept through them, or it's been too cloudy outside to see them.  Just as I said, for probably the 50th time, that I wanted to see some northern lights, I saw a strange green cloud out the window.  NORTHERN LIGHTS!! 

Andy and I bundled up (except I had no convenient shoes but flip flops by the door, which was unpleasant to say the least because it was only 26 degrees outside) and ran out to the deathtrap deck to watch the show.  I was really impressed that we could see them so well from our house and we spent a solid half hour outside just watching the green lights dance across the sky.  Here's a picture from the paper today: 

That was the view from flattop, which, having no lights up there, was much better than at our house, but we still saw the lights, which were incredible! Next time we're going up to the mountains to check out the view from there.  I've also subscribed to email alerts from the Geophysical institute at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, so I know when they're coming.  What's crazy is that last night's show was a level "2" out of 10 on the activity scale.  I'd love to see level-10 northern lights!

Today was a lazy day - we decided to take the car to get the snow tires put on for the winter.  We ended up just leaving it at the tire place and walking home.  It seemed kind of silly that we're putting on snow tires, when it's only snowed once and that stuck around for only a few hours, but the forecast was calling for snow next week and we felt like it was something we should do before it snows rather than after.  Also, we wanted to do our part to tear up the roads in town.

Putting the studs on turned out to be a good decision because it just started snowing about a half hour ago.  Despite the fact that the weather channel app on my phone says it's clear skies and 40 degrees outside...maybe at the airport?

When we got home from the tire place, guess what I found in the yard???

That's right, NEW MOOSE POOP!  So now I'm officially pissed that this moose is dumping all over our yard and doesn't even have the decency to do it when I'm home so I can take a picture of the stupid thing.  This means war.

So aside from me being absolutely 100% right about the fact that one morning I could walk outside in my slippers and sweatpants and come face to face with a moose (meaning my fears are NOT irrational and Andy was completely wrong),  this weekend taught me another important lesson - WHINING GETS RESULTS.  First I whined about the northern lights, and then they appeared, next I whined about the snow, and it's snowing buckets outside.  Now, I'm off to go whine about winning the lottery.   This one's going to be extra tough because they don't even have the lottery in Alaska.

Everyone have a great weekend!!