Tonight Scott went outside to take the trash down to the curb. There was a lot of it because of the baby's birthday party yesterday. He took his Maglight with him, which is sort of unusual for him. It's a good thing he did because on the path back to the overflowing trash can was a critter with a big black bushy tail and a white stripe. He would not have seen it until he was getting sprayed if it were not for the light. He came back in the front of the house then looked out the back door and saw one of our neighborhood cats waiting his turn at the feast. One can only imagine the expletives racing through the dear man's head. For a solid 20 minutes he heard rummaging around outside. When all was quiet we went outside to clean up the mess. It was not as bad as we thought it was, or as it could have been (especially given that the entire platter of cheeseburgers that met an untimely demise on the concrete patio yesterday afternoon was in that can. Skunk must've smelled it, but couldn't find it.) It was cleaned up in a jiffy.
The amazing thing is, we live in a pretty urban area. As I remarked on the way back inside the house, it's not like we live in Sussex County!
3 comments:
Yowser. Had to laugh about your "urban area" comment. San Diego is in the top ten cities population wise, but we have skunks and possums and the occasional coyote or two or three seen (if you keep your eyes peeled!) due to the topography around here. Lots of canyons interlace our neighborhoods. Early this summer, I was coming home from work at my usual time of 9:30pm or so...and who is wandering down my sidewalk all pleased with themselves, but a momma skunk and two chilluns. I waited in the street a bit, as they ambled across my driveway, and thankfully they kept moving on. Next door. Some years back I came home, again at night, and had opened my car door and was literally about to put my foot out, when just underneath a "moving black mitt white stripe" passed casual by, DIRECTLY underneath my foot. Did it spray? No. But believe me, I carefully put my foot back in the car, and DIDN'T "secure" the door, but closed it as much as I dared without making a noise.. and waited a good 5 minutes. They used to amble in to Jack Murphy stadium, which is near the San Diego river, all the time. On a lazy summer evening in the late innings, it wasn't unusual to suddenly see a section of people get up and MOVE because Mr or Mrs. Skunk decided it would be fun to mosey in and down an aisle. Gentle creatures...as long as they're not startled. But brother. What amazes me is your pic. Did you guys actually TAKE this picture yourselves? If so...I am amazed you got it without getting sprayed.
Last year was the worst. A dead possum just decided to die on my patio. I don't go out there too much, but because it was so hot, I had the back door open, and wondered for a night "what IS that smell?" and I had to close the door. I won't go into the gory details, but suffice to say I buried him in my back yard, and got some chlorine or whatever and just poured about 3/4 of a gallon over where it, and its, errr...maggot buddies had been. Uglier than mortal sin. But I'm told they keep the rat population down! And once some years back a possum had decided to give birth in the rectory. Somehow it had gotten into a crawl space, and had to be removed by an "expert." I can remember the then pastor and I doing a little research on how big a possum litter was, and we were relieved to find that on average it wasn't MORE than two...which was bad enough!
I got that picture online. There was no way we were getting that close to Pepe Le Pew!
My sister lives in Sussex County. They get bears and deer in their backyard. Whole HERDS of deer. They have NAMED the deer. I believe the parents are Walter and Waltress (foruntately for her children, she was not so "creative" when she named them!)
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