Dad Got a Moose!

Speaking of provision (because I so often do)…

My father is an elementary school teacher, so he doesn’t get much time to hunt (teachers only have 2 days of personal leave). He goes out over Labor Day weekend, and sometimes on another weekend or two, but usually he can’t go hunt.

Even so, God has nearly every year provided meat, either through a shared kill, an antlerless hunt permit or by a call from someone we know on the edge or just outside of town, saying there’s a moose in their garden or back yard.

My father hunts with a bow, so he can hunt in places a gun hunt (i.e. residential areas) wouldn’t be allowed.

Now, this being Alaska, we really do have “neighborhood moose” wandering around various subdivisions. I remember one sleeping outside my window when I was in high school.

My old (as in, arthritic and going blind) dog once rushed one when she thought it was going to hurt my mom. Got kicked really good, too. Usually there’s less drama.

Yesterday’s seminar talked a lot about “hidden rules” that exist in different groups (the main focus there was economic levels), and how easily relationship can be damaged or destroyed by unknowingly violating these hidden rules.

I was trying to think of hidden rules that serious in my own community. Serious enough to damage relationship (there are many unspoken “understandings,” but most of them just reveal if someone is assimilated Alaskan or fresh from Outside). I’ve only thought of one so far:

You never shoot the neighborhood moose. I only remember one time when a neighborhood moose was killed, and there was so much outrage you never would have guessed we’re a hunting community.

So Dad never stepped outside and shot a moose on his own property, because we always lived in a neighborhood. He knew the “rule.”

But he lives now in my grandparents’ house. It’s still in town, but not in a neighborhood, so when he went outside last night and saw a moose he was free to grab his bow. It took some tracking (and my mom drove the Subaru to where it finally fell), but with the neighbors’ help they got it all cut up and hung in the garage by 1:30 this morning.

God is so faithful to provide.

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