What a Day

It seems the whole county or state has had a HUGE population of skunks gamboling about this early spring.  Pretty things.  Pretty, stinky things.

This morning I went out to feed ponies, and as is my practice, I inhaled deeply as I opened the tack room door.  No skunk odor!  At ease!  Free to move about the barn!

I moved on to the chicken house.  (A misnomer, because Yes!  We Have No Bananas Chickens...we only have ducks.)  I opened the door to let out our two ducks.  OMIGOODNESS!  OMIGOODNESS!!  One of the ducks, the poor Khaki Campbell, was half-eaten (and dead, obviously).  I walked on in to get a grasp of the situation, and lo and behold, a skunk was staring at me from across the little (and I stress LITTLE) enclosure.  And it took me no time at all to remove myself from that little chicken house.

What to do?  What to do?!

I called my neighbor Barb.  She, in turn, called her husband Joe, who was out dealing with the 120+ cows that are calving on their ranch, 200+ already having done so.  Poor guy - he should not have answered his cell phone right then, while he was unrolling the round bale for the cows and heifers.

Yay for kind neighbors who put up with city folk who do not own guns.  Joe came down, and offed the skunk with one go.  Poor skunk.  But, I must learn to toughen up.

The skunk is gone, our lone duck is lonely, our yard smells like skunk, but all else is right with our bucolic world.

Oh, and after neighbor Joe left to get back to his real world, I made an apple tart and took it to the Downey Ranch.  After all, isn't that what proper etiquette dictates?  When the neighborhood SWAT Team pays a visit, one bakes a tart for them.

What a day.