Every winter, a moose stops by to prune the raspberry stalks.

Moose: Quality, dependable service, year after year.

I used to dread this and wish we had a real fence around the raspberries and strawberries, but this year, I don’t care. You see, I had a lesson in Growing Raspberries and was advised to cut back the first-year stalks at the end of the season. I’ve never done that, and thanks to our dependable moose, I don’t have to.

Our moose-munched and scrawny raspberries produced better than ever this year, so I’ve stopped worrying about winter moose pruning. I will still make an effort to keep them out of the berry bed during the summer and fall, but they seem far less interested then anyway, what with the abundance of yummy willows and fireweed.

This gardening-with-moose situation is working out all right.

In December, raspberries are better than aspens.