Rural Routes, Blog Version

SKUNKED

Two days ago, my mother-in-law spotted four baby skunks along the road to our farm and was concerned about their proximity to her yard.

I was not empathetic.  As I told my husband K, the skunks were not hurting anyone. And besides, baby skunks are cute.

That same night, I was awakened by a sudden sharp whiff of skunk. The animal had to be close by.

K went out on the front step and saw an adult skunk coming towards him along the side of the house. The skunk made for the ‘dog house’ embedded in the cement.

When the concrete was poured for the doorstep more than 30 years ago, my husband put a barrel inside the wet cement with its open end facing outwards. We lined the inside of the barrel with carpet remnants and added blankets and old clothing to make it a cozy sleeping place for our dog.

Now we have two dogs and two dog houses.The barrel is used in the winter, but not in the spring and summer. A peony planted near the doorstep effectively covers the entrance to the barrel.

“He’s in the dog house,” K said, coming back to the bedroom. “How are we going to get him out?”

Easy answer. We weren’t.

But maybe he would get himself out during the night. We went back to bed.

The next morning when K left the house for morning chores, he knew that the skunk was still there. He could hear the thump thump thump of an agitated skunk beneath him. But the peony plant obscured the opening and he could not see the animal properly.

“Perhaps if you held the peony back a bit so that I could get a clear shot?” he asked me.

No way.

He took aim as best he could and fired several shots. The air was heavy with skunk perfume.

“I’ll leave him there for a bit and remove him later,” K said.

I was in and out of the house many times that day, watering plants, pulling a few weeds. I did not take a peek into the dog house.

Late that afternoon, my husband asked me if I had removed the skunk. No, I said.

“I have to do everything around here,” he said.

But he got a surprise when he pulled back the peony because the skunk was not dead and apparently not even injured.

We’ll fast forward through the rest of the story. My husband’s second attempt was successful. He removed the body and we burned the carpet and blankets that had been inside the barrel.

“Do you want me to splash some diesel fuel in there to kill the smell?” he asked. “It might kill the peony, though.”

The peony plant was a gift from my mother many years ago. I would rather live with the skunk smell for a few days than kill that plant.

“Funny thing,” K said to me. “When my mother saw those skunks, you were all ‘they’re so cute’ and ‘they’re not hurting anyone’. It was a different story when we had a skunk in our dog house.”

I stand convicted.

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