Alaskan Daily Digest - Moose tales

Well, once again I thought I would talk about moose. Not about their poop this time, just about them. We seem to live in moose central here in Wasilla. They are everywhere. We live about 5 miles outside town and our property is very wooded. We have horse farms on both sides of us, and the local moose have carved a trail between our properties. I can always tell when they're close by because our neighbor's horse gets antsy and starts making noise. Sometimes, however, they sneak up like they did when they destroyed my garden as you can see in my previous post "Gardening, Alaska style" (yes, I have moose issues).

So for today's Alaskan daily digest I thought I would share the story of Buzzwinkle the moose from the Anchorage Daily News. Buzzwinkle was a moose who had lived for years in downtown Anchorage and was known by the locals, especially the business owners. One day, Buzzwinkle ate some rotted fruit from a crabapple tree and got, well, drunk. It was close to the holiday season and Buzzwinkle proceeded to become entangled in some Christmas lights, staggering drunk through town with lights trailing behind him. Here are a couple of photos:


Buzzwinkle, tangled in lights


Buzzwinkle, staggering drunk through the streets downtown, with his decidedly "flashy" new look

And, here is my fairly useless factoid for the day from the Alaskan Almanac:

In Fairbanks, it is illegal for a moose to walk on the sidewalk. A pre-World War I ordinance was created because of a local bar owner who liked to get his pet moose drunk. The moose then stumbled around town, annoying the residents. So, if it is illegal for a moose to walk on the sidewalk, the animal could not get into a bar to drink.