I’m piiiiiiicking in the rain, just piiiiicking in the rain…

Met the local young bull moose yesterday as we crested a hill from opposite directions. He spotted me first, startled, and bolted, but only a few steps. The pounding of his hooves under his 1,000 or so pounds startled me and set my heart pounding in harmony. We were closer than either of us wanted to be (maybe 10 feet, initially), though we are somewhat familiar with each other.

I spoke in a calm, soft (lying) voice, as I am wont to do. He’s heard that before. We were heading in opposite directions on the same relative path, so we needed to get around each other. Maybe it would be better for him if I had made a scene and chased him off, but my instinct was to keep relatively still while calmly going about my business. That’s what I did when he was in the yard this spring and I wanted to work in the garden. He browsed or lounged on the hill, I worked in the garden.

So I picked a few blueberries. He took a few steps to his right, keeping his bulging eyes on me, so I stepped to my right, too. We circled around each other about twenty feet apart. He put a little more distance between us then set to browsing, too.

He sure is pretty–a sleek, dark chocolate brown with small velvety 3-point antlers. That’s what I’m calling them–does the prong up front count as a point? He’s rippled with muscle and oh-so-graceful. I would have liked to look at him longer while he was close, but he is a wild animal, and bulls can start to get snotty this time of year, what with the hormones and the rut. It’s just as well it was a brief encounter.