Sunday, June 6, 2010

It's Getting Wild

The list of things I'm getting used to since moving to Park City has just been expanded to include the abundance and proximity of wildlife to where we live.


"Bigoo"

I have the good fortune of living walking distance (I'm talking a 1 1/2 minute walk) from where I work. I also have the good fortune of bringing Bigoo (Big+Goo= Bigoo, a.k.a. Lucy) to work with me.

On our way to work Friday, we came out onto the sidewalk to find a 2.5 foot long snake just chillin'. It was just laying there minding its own business.

I made a quick assessment:
No rattle. Check!
Not a black mamba. Check!
Round pupils. Check!

(Tangent: Round pupils indicate that a snake is not venomous. Whereas, elliptical pupils indicate that they are. Good information, but let's hope you never get close enough to a snake for this information to be useful.)

Now I'm not afraid of snakes, or many reptile species for that matter, but I was afraid of the possible altercation between my hyper-curious labrador and this wild creature. But this was not the snake's first rodeo. It didn't move an inch and Bigoo stepped right over it (literally) without a hint of interest or recognition that it was even there. I, on the other hand, respected its "personal space bubble" and walked 3-feet around it.

Great, now I have snake encounters on my way to work. But that doesn't compare to the phone call I got from Jason a couple hours later.

Our condo backs up to a wooded hill-y area that is undeveloped for many many acres. Every now and then, people take their own noise makers for walks around the back of our house so it's not uncommon for our puppers to go ape shit at the back door. Our other little noise maker, Inga, was doing just that at the screen door.

Ferocious guard dog

As Jason attempted to quiet our 20lb guard dog, he saw movement out of the corner of his eye and turned to see a full-grown giant MOOSE (antlers and all) standing 30-feet outside our back door. Talk about an adrenaline rush.

He managed to snap off a photo before it meandered away. The photo mildly resembles those taken of Big Foot, but I swear that if you look close enough, you can see the outline of the moose in the background.


Forget the snake. I can handle a little garter snake. But a possible moose encounter is another story.