Osakis family has run-in with 'Spike' the moose

• Moose

The Karnes family came across this moose near Sauk Centre. (Contributed photo)

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Editor’s note: The following is a first-person account of an Osakis family’s encounter with a moose, written by Monica Karnes. She and her husband, Kyle, have three children, Logan, Caleb and Dylan.

What a way to start off a great day, with this wonderful creature: a bull moose!

I was doing the normal morning routine, feeding the kids breakfast, starting another load of laundry, when my cell phone started ringing. It was my husband calling me. He was on his way to Sauk Centre to work on getting his lawn mower tractor fixed, as he needed new parts.

He said to me, “You will never guess what I’m looking at!”

“What are you looking at?” I asked.

“In the field is a bull moose,” he explained. I couldn’t believe it, as I didn’t think they would normally be this far south.

I told him that he should try to take a picture, but unfortunately, the camera he has on his cell phone does not take very good pictures. So I grabbed my Kodak camera and our three boys, and off we went to Sauk Centre.

I told our boys where we were going and what we hopefully could see. Our oldest son, Logan, 7, said “Cool,” our middle son, Caleb, 4, exclaimed, “We can go there to see it!” and our youngest, Dylan, 20 months, wasn’t sure what all the chaos was about.

So once we met up with my husband, Kyle, he got in our vehicle, and we started driving to see if we could find the moose again, as where he was waiting, we were no longer able to see it. We did notice there were a few trucks driving near a corn field and assumed the moose was probably resting there.

So continued to drive, and just on the other side of the corn field, my husband and I saw the moose’s back. He was in a low spot in the field, and the kids were unable to see him.

So we turned around to see if he was on the move, and he was. They were able to see him. The moose started to follow a tree line near the road, and we knew just up the road was a gravel road where they would hopefully be able to see him better. Of course, there were a few other cars of people coming to see this wonderful sight.

We parked just off of the gravel road where the tree line ended and hoped that he would continue to follow and cross right over the road. Our patience paid off, as we were able to watch him come over the hill and walk down across the road right in front of us.

Dylan now was able to see right out his window what all the fuss was about and pointed with his finger and said “uuuuuuuu” as if trying to tell the moose hello. We watched the moose trot off the road into another tree line headed toward Sauk Centre in hope that he would continue safely on his way.

On the way back home to Osakis, Dylan kept saying “moose” as if he wanted to see him again. I explained the moose had to go home. Dylan said “bye” and waved.

As I drove, I asked, “What do you think his name was?” and Caleb said, “Spike,” as he had pointy antlers. Logan agreed and was excited to get home and get a picture printed off to show to his classmates on Monday.

Tags: local news, news, moose