Living on a Gully!
If you have read Marie's most recent blog then you know about our little stinker. No, I don't mean Jade when she has gas. I mean a real baby skunk which wandered up from the gully with its mother a couple of days ago and managed to fall in one of our window wells. The mother is no where to be seen, but our dog, Jade, managed to find the little critter in our window well on Sunday.
Now our dilema was- how do you get a skunk out of your window well without getting sprayed? I went on the internet to find out about baby skunks. Can they spray too? How old are they before they can spray? How old is this little critter? Is it as stinky as an adult skunk?
What I found out was that baby skunks can share their odor at about 1 month. Most skunks give birth in late spring (May) which would make this baby at least a month old. I also found out that baby's can't shoot their spray 6 to 15 feet like adults, but they usually just "piddle."
I don't like to see animals suffer (even a skunk). From my neighbors' experiences with skunks, I knew that animal control doesn't usually bother with skunks. My neighbors have had to find their own ways of disposing of their skunk invaders. Cat food is one of the biggest attractions for them. So I am very careful to bring in our cats' food each night so that we don't have racoon and skunky visitors at night like we used to. This has helped a lot, but I guess friday or saturday night, we had visitors, hence the baby skunk in the window well.
With all this information, Marie, Anthon and I decided to try to get the poor little thing out of the window well and back out to the gully. Our first attempt was to put a board down into the well so the Little Stinker could crawl out by itself. No go. Poor Little Stinker has been traumatized by the fall and doesn't want to move. Then Anthon has a great idea. Make a skunkie trap out of an old cereal box, attach a string to it, then lure the skunkie into it with cat food. When Little Stinker gets into the box we lift it out by the string and take it back to the gully. Unfortunately, Little Stinker doesn't want to get into the box, and when we try to prod it gently into the box with a hoe, Little Stinker lets us know it is not pleased. The internet was right. Month old skunks can spray or "piddle." We left the box. The offending odor drove us away and permeated our house. Peeeeuw! We gave up after that. It took all night to get rid of the smell by running the fan throughout the house.
Now for the latest update! Little Stinker is back with her gully friends! Monday morning and afternoon I checked the window well. Little Stinker was still huddled in the well away from the box. I had decided that I would probably have to let it die in my window well and hope I could get it out before it bloated and released its stink. This morning (Tuesday) I tried to find time to check on Little Stinker, but couldn't. Finally this afternoon I was reading Marie's blog and it reminded me that I hadn't checked on it. So when Nicole was asleep, I went downstairs to peek through the window...and all I could see was the box. Could Little Stinker have crawled out on the board? Or was it in the box?
I hurried out with the hoe to try to snag the string so I could pull up the box. As I looked into the well...no skunk. Yipee! I snagged the string and pulled up the box. OOOhhh! Little Stinker is in the box looking at me! I'm muttering, "Please don't spray. Please don't spray," as I hold the string and box as far away from me as possible. I hurried across my yard, out through the field to the edge of the gully and lowered the box. I got lucky. Little Stinker decided not to spray even though it was a little bit of a rough ride. Using the hoe, I turned the box over so Little Stinker could easily get out and then I hightailed it back to the house before it decided to leave me with a smelly souvineer of its visit.
So I guess all's well that ends well, as long as its not in my window well.

I Love Summer!

At last the school year has ended and I get a few weeks to try to catch up on all the things that I didn't get done while I worked. I will also get a chance to enjoy more time with my husband, children and grandchildren, and of course, Jade, Midnight and Mellow. I have to mention them (our pets) because they are a part of our household.

I love summer because, my time is my own. Instead of being run by a school schedule, clock and calendar planner, I get to choose what to do with my day (for the most part). I love that! If one of my kids need me to help them with something, I have the time to do it. If I want to do something fun with grandkids, I can do it. If I want to work on geneology or scrapbooking in longer time increments, I can do it. If I want to work in the garden and actually finish a section of yard work without rushing off to work, I can do it. If I just want to stay home and read a book, I can do it. If I get sick, I can stay home and get well without feeling guilty. I can also just sit around and think. Something I used to do more often, but feels like a luxury now. I can have enough energy at the end of the day (instead of feeling exhausted when I get home) to do more things that I like to do.

Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy my work and it is very rewarding most of the time, but it is also demanding and at times stressful. It does wear me out by the end of the day. I guess I'm getting older. Not as much energy. I guess it is the selfish part of me coming out....being able to do what I want and like to do, when I want to. So I do love summer even though it goes by too quickly. The nice thing is that it comes around every year.

OK. I'm not good at this, but just a few words on Mother's Day. Many women I know hate Mother's Day. I'm not sure if it's because we feel so inadequate at not being able to measure up to what our idea of a "good" mother should be or because we always hope for a peaceful, tranquil day in which our children are perfect angels all day long and our husbands pamper and adore us, anticipating our every need and whim. Maybe it's both, in any case, Mother's Day is often a big disappointment for many women. Me included. However, now that I'm older, my kids have grown up and are no longer yelling and fighting with each other in the car on the way home from church, and I don't have to feel like I'm a failure as I listen to talks exalting the virtues of mothers who do not resemble me in the least. Now as I look at my children, their spouses, grandchildren and husband, I feel a sense of contentment and peace at the family that surrounds me and that I have tried to nurture. In return I feel love and acceptance of me, the imperfect mother...and I realize it is enough. In fact it is more than I could have hoped for...being loved by such wonderful people. Thanks for the memories.

Mom's Blog

Becky, my favorite child, has set up this blog for me. I don't have much to say now, but I'm pretty sure that this blog will be an Ode to Jade, my dog.