RE: KevinG
It was warm the other day, so that evening I opened up the windows and had a box fan in one of them.
I normally let our two dogs out for last call one at a time. When I opened the door, both dogs charged out and headed for the black kitty with the white stripe down its back under the birdfeeder about 30 feet away. Both got a face full of skunk, howled a bit, and commenced to rub their faces in the grass.
The night breeze assisted by the window fan filled the house with the skunk scent. My wife woke up to the commotion. She doesn't wake up to an adversarial situation well. The dogs and I got quite a verbal spanking. Mine may have been somewhat deserved, but the dogs were just being dogs.
Had a long night with hydrogen peroxide, baking soda, and dawn dog baths.
Look out for those black kitties with the white stripe.
Kevin G
I have a Skunk tale that goes nicely with this one. I'll go get it and be right back.
SKUNK TALES
When I was a kid, my aunt, uncle and 2 cousins had a
dairy farm in the Waco, Texas area. It was on Hwy 6,
between Valley Mills and Clifton, right dead bang in
the Heart-O-Texas where the summers are notoriously
long, hot, and dry. Every summer I'd go up and spend 2
or 3 weeks with them and get my "country fix". I'm a
city boy and always have been and always will be but I
love being in the country for a while from time to
time. Relaxes and rejuvenates the spirit and charges
up the old batteries, you might say.
I think it was the summer when I was 9 years old, and
up for my annual summer visit when I had my...close
encounter of the stinkiest kind. By now, I can't
remember the month but it must have been late July or
August because it was very hot and very dry. My
cousin, who is 2 years older than me, and I were out
one day varmint hunting. He had a single shot .22 and
I had BB gun. That farm seemed like the whole world to
a 9 year old city kid but it was really only 160 acres
and fenced off into different grazing pastures and
areas for growing this crop and that crop.
We were
going from one of the grazing pastures to another and
my cousin had forgotten to tell me that there was a
few volts of electricity in a wire that ran along the
3rd strand from the bottom, in the 4-strand barbed
wire fence, to keep the cows in (nothing much funnier
than seeing a cow put her wet nose on the hot wire).
He went through the fence without touching the hot
wire but I was about halfway through when the back of
my neck came in contact with the hot wire. Made a loud
"pop" and put me face down on the ground. I thought
I'd been shot. Couldn't figure out why my cousin
was laughing so hard.
I was still sulking about that when we both saw it at
the same time...A big, fat skunk running flat out for
an enormous patch of prickly pear cactus. It was nearly
perfectly round and must have been 15' across. The
skunk must have seen us a split second before we saw
him. He could have just hunkered down and we'd never
have known he was there. I sure wish now that he would
have, it would have spared me a lot of grief.
Of course, when we saw that skunk disappear inside
that cactus patch we perceived that as a direct
challenge..."betc'all can't get me outta here!". We
happily took up that challenge and commenced to
planning a strategy for our attack. We wanted to get
him but we wanted to drive him out and bag him out in
the open so we could confirm our victory. We just go
blasting away and we'd never know for sure if we
got him or not.
My cousin found a suitable tree branch and told me to
poke around in the cactus and try to drive him out so
he could get a clear shot. I poked and poked but
nothing moved as far as we could tell. We finally
realized that we were not going to be able to get him
out of there with just the two of us and no other
means of driving him out other than shooting into the
patch. I went first because a direct hit with a BB
wouldn't slow him down any and it might make him make
a run for it.
I blasted away and kept it up until my
gun went dry. I reloaded and started blasting again.
My cousin would fire a shot into the patch now and
then, hoping the noise would drive him or a bullet
hitting close by would jump him up. Nothing...no
sign of movement at all.
Now we were getting impatient. Did he make a run for
it and we didn't see him? Did one of the shots from
the .22 finish him off? I picked up the tree branch,
which was pretty long and fairly straight. Made a few
tentative pokes at the edge of the patch. Thought I
noticed a little movement in one spot so I cautiously
approached and made a mighty thrust with the branch
into the spot where I thought I'd seen movement.
Instantly and with out warning, My eyes were watering
to the point that I couldn't see and I was unable to
breath. I took the blast from the skunk directly in
the face from 4' away. My cousin was around kind of on
the other side of the patch and not paying attention
to me he was fooling with the .22 or something and I
heard him holler...SKUUUUUNK, RUN FOR IT!! And he did
too, but it was too late for me. Just way too late.
My cousin's dog, Butchie, a mixed breed that was
predominately some kind of hound or other, had been
playing around us the whole day. Now you see him - now
you don't. When I picked up the branch and started to
plan where to begin poking he came up to where I was
and stood right by my side and took a loose, kind of
informal "point" stance. When the skunk cut loose, I
heard him yelp but no one saw that dog again for the
next 2 days and then he just stayed in close to the
house and milkin' barn for the rest of the time I
was there.
After a few seconds I could breath a little bit but I
still couldn't open my eyes at all. I was staggering
around, hoping not to walk into the cactus patch and
then I felt my cousin's hands pulling me away
from" ground zero".
Now, it turns out that my aunt HATES skunk scent. I
mean she really, really hates it. We knew we couldn't
go home like we were so my cousin said we should go
take a dip in one of the stock tanks. That was a no-no
as well but we decided that, under the circumstances,
it might be the best we could do.
After we got out of the water my eyes and breathing
were ok again but it didn't make a dent in the smell
that was on us. The sun was starting to get low and we
new that we had to go home and face the music.
There was a gravel pathway that connected the house
with the hay barn, feed lot, milkin' barn and turkey
brooder. We were just about to step up on the gravel
path when my aunt, who was out in the yard, beating a
rug, jumped up like she'd been hit with a switch and
yelled, "Right there!! Don't you boys take another
step...You just stay right there. You take them
clothes of, ALL of them. Leave 'em where they lay and
come up to the yard gate and STAY THERE!"
She then filled two wash tubs with water and hollered
to the two naked boys standing, trembling in
fear, and stinking to high heaven, to come on into the
back yard and each get in a tub of water. While we
were doing that she disappeared inside the house and
when she came out her arms were full all kinds of soap
and chemicals and, I swear to God, she had a clothes
pin on her nose. She set the stuff in here arms down
next to the tubs and carried a broom handle out to
where the clothes lay on the gravel path. With the
broom handle she gingerly carried them to the burn
barrel and we never saw them again.
My aunt is the absolute epitome of the American
country woman. There was a basic prettiness about her
but it was long buried beneath the layers of sun dried
skin and carved by lines resulting from a lifetime of
hard work, worry, and bad luck. Her hands were the
hands of a construction worker, rough and strong.
I remember one
morning a flock of scissor-tails landed in the oak
trees in the back yard at dawn, and woke her up with
their squawking. Next thing, she was in our room,
shaking us awake and putting .410 shotguns and shell
in our hands and telling us to follow her. We spent
the next few minutes out in the back yard blasting
away at the scissor-tails and then, with out a word,
she took our empty guns and went back into the house
and back to bed, leaving us standing out in the yard
in our underwear, up to our kneecaps in dead birds.
The dogs had a good breakfast, though.
Why, I remember seeing her grab a live chicken by the
head, in each hand, give a quick, simultaneous crank
with each arm and in the next instant two headless
chickens would be flopping around on the ground,
squirting blood every where. A little soak in the
scalding tub and then she'd sit on a milking stool,
hoist up her apron and pluck 'em. Gave me a real
appreciation for fried chicken, I'll tell you.
For all her roughness she could be tender when she was
with her kids. Unfortunately, she wasn't in a very
tender mood, sitting on that self-same milking stool
and scrubbing the skin off two stinky little boys with
that clothes pin on her nose.
I distinctly remember
the milk, the tomato juice, and the vinegar. Then came
the grit soap (that's what was takin' the skin off)
and then something like lighter fluid or turpentine or
something and that felt really stimulating after the
scrubbing...whew. I remember looking into her eyes to
see if there was anything like kindness, or mercy, or
any sign of forgiveness,
however small. All I saw was two dark, shiney pieces
of flint, glaring at me and I could hear her cursing
softly as she scrubbed. I knew I was in for the
whole ride.
The incident finally blew over and I formed new skin
and the stink was eventually gone. I have smelled
skunk many times since and each time I recall that
experience. I only hope that I never get another
direct hit like that again. Nothing you can do will
help much. It just takes time. I guess if this story
has a lesson to be learned it would be this: If you
see a skunk, let him be...just let him be.
