I know people who are taxidermy collectors. Their homes are full of game that was killed and drug home by gun-slinging men and boys (and some ladies, ‘cuz of women’s suffrage and all that).

I am not one of those people.

But this weekend, we became proud owners of The Moose Rack.

My fabulous father-in-law shot The Moose himself. 1100 pounds of pure Alaskan moose. In actual Alaska. In 1962. Which gave he and his new bride (who is my amazing mother-in-law I stay up late with) enough moose jerky to nosh on for the next few decades.

What well-respecting wife-slash-daughter-in-law wouldn’t undeniably agree to this?

So the moose rack hangs proudly on our newly decorated back porch.

The good news is that it’s just the rack and not the entire head, which is what I had expected. So at least you’re not staring it down like Papa Big John did after walking five miles uphill both ways in waist-high snow.

I think I’m going to hang Christmas lights on it.