Regional Differences

In Louisiana in the spring, newspaper articles talk about what to do if an alligator shows up in your yard. (Answer: Wait until it goes away.)

In the West we have what to do when you encounter a cougar. (I forget.)

Visitors to Yellowstone are reminded not to pet the bison, or put children on a bison's back for a photo op. (You'd think that one would be a no-brainer, but it happens.)

We also have avalanche workshops--how to tell if you're in a danger area and avoid it, etc.

August 20, 2009

From Sunday’s paper, in a column about what to do when you encounter a moose: “If the long hairs on a moose's hump are raised, its ears are laid back and it is licking its lips, you are too close.” If you can see any of that, I’d say so.


September 9, 2009

Letters to the Editor about the wolf kill that’s been approved:

One says, “It will be the first animal I’ve harvested that I couldn’t eat…”

Another says, “Good recipes for wolf are hard to come by, so here is one I found in an old family recipe book...Wolves may be refrigerated and prepared using your favorite recipe for bear…”

Everybody who’s reading this, go call your mother and thank her for serving you chicken.

December 4, 2008

At a meeting last night, one woman mentioned that she visited her daughter’s farm in Oregon, and the daughter was trapping gophers. I think another woman thought it was neat, until she found out that the daughter was killing the gophers. “She kills the gophers?” she asked in a horrified tone.

I wondered a) what she thought the woman was trapping the gophers for and b) if she was from California. (Around here, tree-huggers and liberals are assumed to be from California unless they can prove otherwise. I imagine that gopher-lovers might fall into the same category.) At any rate, she’s clearly not a farm person.


(Update: about six months later the lady did, in fact, move back to California.)