Oh boy. It was totally pitch black as I made my way over to the schoolyard entrance this morning. What is this? It was a black and white aminal rounding the corner toward me. Mostly white and scruffy as all getout. It only took me about a split second to figure out it was NOT a dog.

I wish I could’ve gotten a pic but I was busy making a hasty retreat. I don’t know how fast skunks are capable of moving. Usually they kind of amble along in my experience but I was not taking any chances. I got about halfway back down the block when I dared to turn around. It was walking along the other side of the street and turned up somebody’s driveway so I cautiously made my way back through the schoolyard.

The skunk population varies per year. One year when the beach urchins were in elementary school, I was regularly woken up at that Batscope Hour, nauseated by the smell. (This was before I walked early in the morning because I was busy getting kids off to school.) One morning after a very skunky night, I walked my mouse over to third grade and it stunk to high heaven over at the school too. Mr. K of Plutification Blues was exclaiming over this and I told him how awful it was at my house over night. Night of Skunks, we agreed.

We’ve had a few years of relatively fewer skunks. There was a period when rabies was present in the skunk population and we have always suspected there may have been a quiet “cull”. But who knows. Anyway, with fewer encounters, I’ve gotten careless about watching for them. Guess I will have to be more vigilant again. At least I don’t have a dog to walk.

So instead of a skunk picture, you get this kayak the GG sent from down in the Huron River. This was a good thing for him to do because it gave me a nice quiet space for working. I swear he was on the phone with at least three of his siblings this morning. It’s not that he’s on the phone that drives me nuts. It’s that he paces wildly all over the Landfill when he’s on the phone, especially when he’s talking to his sibs.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 11th, 2021 at 5:11 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.