Moose on a school yard

Ok, so earlier this week there was an incident at a local middle school involving some students and a young bull moose. The local media and school would tell you that it was 2 children throwing small pebbles and sticks at a sick moose which then fell over and died and the teachers were just right behind the kids and put an end to it immediately..

This is a lie. I have heard from one who knows more about what happened that there is a bit of a cover up going on. Here is what I understand of the situation: 3 PE classes were let out without anyone checking the grounds for moose, which are common this time of year and it is common practice to check for them before letting kids run loose. This was not done. The kids were supposed to be running laps, some of them were. Most of the students were doing more or less what they should have been doing. But there were many who were not. And teachers were not a mere "minute or two" behind the children. I have heard that they were left basically unattended for upwards of 20 minutes.

The moose was loose in one side of the yard and after initially being startled by the kids (with the rocks and the sticks..) it charged towards one of the kids who was running laps. This child, and others could have been seriously injured or killed. But the moose got caught in the fencing. He thrashed around so badly that he got his antler caught and eventally ripped one of them out of his own head. Even this was not enough for these children, however, as they continued to torment it. (Others did go off to look for teachers at some point.) The moose then threw itself severa times against another fence or building until it died. It's death has been ruled "winter kill" (a common thing up here in early spring when young moose who haven't had enough food over the winter just die off at random...) and the "next in line" for the moose kill list were called and the moose was butchered for food there on the play ground.

This moose well may have been sickly due to poor diet, and may well have eventually died on it's own. But it might also have lived if it hadn't had to deal with the torment and torture it went through that day. There were supposed to have been 3 teachers out in the yard with the kids that day. They were not providing the proper supervision for these kids. It is my understanding, as mentioned, that these kids were basically unattended for about 20 minutes. That is enough time for all sorts of things to go wrong. These kids received a "talking to" and the "2 ringleaders" have apparently been suspended, though who knows for how long.

Part of me really hopes that the information I have is wrong. But most of me knows that, if anything, it's only missing details that would make me cry even more. If these kids can do this, be part of this on the school yard, what are they doing that we don't know of yet? These kids have been taught for years that if you see a moose, you go the other way, slowly and carefully. Moose can kill. And they are hunted in the wild by pack animals.. so a pack of kids is just as scary for the moose and it's instincts are going to kick in and make it that much more dangerous.
It's very sad that this sort of thing could happen...

yay plumbing!!

Well, at long last, we finally got the septic pipe fixed this morning!! I am so happy and relieved.. now I can go back to a "normal" routine.. doing laundry and dishes and showers and everything without having to plan ahead and worry that the basement would flood again... now I can finally get to work on getting the basement cleaned up and ready for summer and kids running around all over the place.
now I just have to get hold of the kids' mom so i can actually make plans for them... i can never get through on the phone line and she's not replying to emails... makes me very suspicious... *sigh*

April's news

wow.. it's been a month...
Well, for starters.. I did get the Library job.. woohoo.. am just loving being back at work in a library. I'm working part time and on call, so my hours vary from week to week, but it's enough for me right now.
We've also had one of the local volcano's go off.. it's been spewing smoke and ash off an on for several weeks now, and could very well continue like this for months.. I'm not too happy with that.. While we haven't had much ashfall here (yay!!) it is still putting out enough gases and other junk into the air that I (and anyone else with any sort of respiratory issue..) am having a lot of trouble breathing some days. Really hating that part... It also played a lot of havoc with the local airport.. lots of flights were canceled and mail shipments were also canceled. So things have been a bit of a mess for anyone trying to get in or out of Alaska, or sending anything through any of the local mail hubs..
And we found out what was wrong and causing all the problems we've been having with our septic system.. A pipe has detatched from the tank and has to be reattached, so we're just waiting now until we can get the yard dug up and that can be fixed. Meanwhile, we're just really careful about water usage. Should be able to get that taken care of soon though as it seems we finally have spring on the way, snow is melting and the yard might actually be visable, and digable.. That will be great.
And soon I will be buying airline tickets for the girls to come up for the summer.. yay!! While they won't have their dad to torment and tease this summer, I know they are still looking forward to coming up and we'll have the web cam and everything set up so they should be able to have some day to day contact with him... we've got a few things planned for that..
Some friends of mine sent me a book last month, in honor of my new job. Alcatraz versus the Evil Librarians by Brandon Sanderson. Really fun book. I ordered a second copy of it (since none of the local book stores had a copy..) and am mailing that to Tom.. so we can read it with the girls this summer.
And our poor little Gobo.. (our 2 year old pomeranian..) took him to the vet last month because he was having some really odd symtems.. he was loosing his undercoat, really itchy, skin all read and hot, off and on fever.. It seems the poor little guy is having an allergic reaction to something, though we havent' been able to figure out what.. Haven't really been any changes to diet or environment, so we don't have any idea what triggered it, but it has to run it's course.. he's lost most of his undercoat and still loosing what little he has left. Most of the time he's ok, but once in a while he'll go all itchy and squirmy, his fever pops up once in a while.. but, he gets some children's benedryl and things seem to settle back down for a while.. Just have to keep an eye on him and check back later if things don't improve after a while.. He just can't have an easy life... (lol at least not according to him... life is so hard for all of our little pooches... plenty of food, daily treats, lots of soft places for their 20 hours or so of daily napping during the winter.. ya know.. all that stuff that makes life so hard for spoiled little doggies...)

anyway, that's pretty much where things are at for now..