About a month ago, I happened to look out my
dining room window and a movement caught my eye.
I was on the phone at the time. I zoomed in on
the movement and spied a black and white fur
ball moving along low to the ground. I told my
friend I had to go. I had a skunk in my yard. I
quickly grabbed my mini 14 that hangs above the
dining room window and loaded it. I slid open
the dining room window at my end of the table.
There is no screen at this end specifically for
this purpose, so I can shoot out the window
without worrying about removing the screen.
Mark likes to
joke that he has the only wife in the country
that wants to be able to see the "gut pile" from
the dining room window. Rifle loaded, I took aim
and fired, and missed. The skunk scooted along
the ground a bit faster and went under the
camper. I never did get another shot at him that
day.
I
told Mark about the skunk that night and told
him I was worried because it was broad daylight
when I saw him right in the yard and when I
fired the rifle at him, he didn't spray. I was
afraid it might be rabid because it was kind of
odd behavior for a skunk. A few days later I had
a visitor out to look at horses and we were just
driving back into the yard from the mare pasture
when we rounded the corner and were face to face
with the skunk, coming straight towards us. I
parked the pickup and ran into the house,
yelling for Mark to get the rifle because the
skunk was in the yard again. Mark and my brother
both grabbed rifles and came out looking for the
skunk. We had watched him cross the road but
could not find him.
We all walked
along the road searching but he must have found
a hole or hidden somewhere because we could not
find him. He had eluded us again.
One day last week we had scheduled the farrier
to trim six horses so when Mark got home from
his bus route, we headed down to the tack barn
to get halters and leads so we could catch up
the six horses and prepare for the farrier's
visit. As we neared the tack barn, we could
smell skunk. When Mark opened the door of the
tack barn, the smell of skunk about knocked us
off our feet. My nose was burning and my eyes
were watering and I could not go in. I started
to gag and thought i was going to get sick. I
had to back off and get upwind. Mark cautiously
searched for the skunk.
We had a momma cat and her kittens in the tack
barn. The momma is quite protective of her
kittens. We have seen her fight with the dogs
and attack other cats when she has a litter of
kittens. The skunk had gained access to the tack
barn through a crack in the corner of the
foundation and there must have been a battle
between momma kitty and the skunk. The skunk had
sprayed in the tack barn.
Now, we have a half dozen saddles in the tack
barn along with all the halters and leads,
grooming supplies, and a ton of feed in bags.
Mark got the halters and leads and caught up the
horses, I went to the house to wait for the
farrier and make some phone calls. After the
horses were caught Mark carried out the saddles
and placed them on the fence in the wind and
sun. The feed and feed buckets were also carried
out. Then he came to the house to have a cup of
coffee.
When he walked in the house, my eyes began to
water! Mark stunk like a skunk!! I chased him
back outside to the front step and told him I
would bring him a change of clothes, which I did
and he changed on the step. Then he grinned and
asked me to bring him a cup of coffee while he
hung his clothes on the line. I brought us both
out a coffee and we drank it sitting out on the
front step...but I still sat upwind of him.
The farrier
made his visit and the horses were trimmed. Good
thing we didn't need to work in the tack barn as
just walking past it made your eyes water and
your nose burn. We left the saddles, tack and
feed out as long as possible but late that
afternoon, it began to cloud up and look like
rain. Mark moved the saddles into an out
building behind the house and the feed and feed
buckets into the calving barn.
Once again when he had finished, I couldn't
stand to have him in the house. Another change
of clothes was brought to him and another change
was done on the front step. Mark joked that he
was beginning to expect the traffic passing on
the highway to start throwing dollar bills at
him. Another set of clothes were hung on the
clothes line.
After a couple of days we finally figured out
that the feed sacks and feed buckets must have
been in the direct line of fire. Each time you
would go down to feed, you smelled as if you had
been living with that skunk! We threw the feed
buckets outside and found some new ones.
The next time
we went to town we picked up some live traps. We
had the other kind but we didn't want to catch
our dogs, cats or numerous other animals, we
didn't have a problem with but this skunk had to
go! Along with the traps we also picked up a
couple of cans of cat food. We got home and set
up five traps around the farm yard.
The next
morning we were up at daylight and we started
running our "trapline". In the first trap we had
a less-than-happy, growling, snarling, spitting,
hissing cat. The other four were empty. The next
day we had nothing in any of the traps, and on
the third day, another unhappy cat. I was
beginning to think this was not going to work
but Mark had faith and on the fourth
morning...SCORE! We caught that stinky devil and
he has been neutralized. However, the stink, the
memories and the laughter will last for years to
come.
