Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Surprise Visitors

This morning I was laying in bed listening to Rick get ready to go hunting.Today is opening season for deer here in NH,and for the last four years Rick has had a doctors appointment on Opening Day,so he was really happy that was not the case this year. There is a very small window for hunters to hunt either sex,and since I am not a hunter,I am not entirely sure how many days it is,but it is no more than 2 or 3. I heard him call down to Brother B to see if he was up and getting ready,and B replied that he was.

Then,I heard the the door from the kitchen to the screen porch(also our mud room) open,and quickly close. I heard Rick call down to Brother B, "We won't be going anywhere for a while-we have two skunks in the mud room."

At this point it's 4:45 AM,and I heard Zach get out of bed. He heard Rick mention skunks,and of course,wanted to see. After a few minutes,the first skunk took off,but the second skunk was not in such a hurry to go.

I got out of bed,and Rick and B had gone off the deck,around the house, to the outside of mud room,where they proceeded to bang on the side of it in hopes of scaring the skunk away. He was curled up behind the recycle bin,against the wall.That sucker wasn't going anywhere. I also noticed that our porch was completely trashed. We had one trash bag on it that was ripped open and garbage was strewn everywhere. Items had fallen off the bench to the floor,and a huge bag of bird seed had been ripped to shreds,leaving 10 lbs of bird seed on the floor.

Sigh.

How did they get on the porch? Our mud room is not attached to the house,so it has settled,causing the simple wood door to not line up with the hook and eye lock.( The door from the kitchen to the mud room is a regular door with a regular lock) The wind had opened the door,and the skunks smelled our trash and bird seed,so they decided to have a nice pre-Thanksgiving feast.

After their futile attempts to scare off the skunk,Rick and Brother B came back inside,and I told them to just go hunting. The skunk would leave eventually,and I could go in and out of the french doors that lead to the deck. Rick,however,would not leave with a skunk on the porch,and he was angry that his hunting plans were getting messed up in this manner. I again told him to just go,and he replied,"Don't say that again. I don't even feel like going hunting now." Alrighty then.

Rick shut off the light in the mud room,thinking that the skunk was probably afraid ,so if it was dark and we left it alone,it would just take off.At 6:15 AM,the skunk decided all was clear and ambled off,not knowing how much aggravation he caused this morning.

Rick and Brother B did wind up going hunting,but only spooked a deer and saw nothing else. Before they left,Rick told me he would clean up the mess after he got back,which was fine with me. I decided I was going to make crock pot chili for supper,thinking after being in the woods all day they would enjoy a nice,hot meal that would warm their bellies and bones. They were back to the house earlier than I thought they would be,and while I was preparing the chili Rick cleaned up the mess,filling a 5 gallon bucket with the wayward bird seed. He decided to give it to the chickens and the turkeys,and they enjoyed it immensely. Rick and Brother B then decided to go back out on the mountain to do more hunting.So I now have a quiet house until Zach gets home from school at 3:00 (being alone doesn't happen very often and I relish the time I do get).

It's amazing how two little creatures can cause so much turmoil on Opening Day.My guess is that lock will be adjusted by the end of the day,and locked each night. Sorry,skunks,but your party is over!!!

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