Conventional wisdom says wildlife is the innocent victim when people move into the swamps. The animals in our neck of the swamp couldn’t be happier that such a generous species came and built houses for them to live under.
Doesn’t matter the season, these guys are always ready to drop in.
The deer love our gardens. Our bird feeders save the squirrels untold time and effort finding 18 square meals per day. The “Little Man who lives under the porch” (probably a woodchuck, though ethnic origins shouldn’t matter) burrows himself into our hospitality often. Field Mice have bunked with our accommodating cat.
Then there was this guy, who took a four-hour nap in our back yard last fall.
In February, a skunk set up housekeeping under our deck. We’ve entertained skunks before, but this one was special. Every night it would light up our house with the tangiest batch of squeezin’s we’d ever breathed.
Having repelled its kind before with ammonia-soaked rags, this was our first defense. But when it is 0°F (-18°C) outside, ammonia does more freezing than stinking. Skunks stink grandly at any temperature.
It got so bad it kept us up all night, and some of us puked. My wife claimed it was making her uterus contract, which seemed a stretch, but maybe not.
Animal Control would attempt to trap the skunk for many bags of gold, but for some reason they didn’t feel confident of success. They said it was probably a female, attracting a mate.
That tore it.
It’s one thing to be smoked out of your home by some poor creature protecting herself, but we run a respectable household. She could do her whorin’ elsewhere. We weren’t about to stand idle while Pepina Le Pew advertised booty calls with her Love Potion Number Noxious.
Get your girl, Pepe, or you’re gonna find your brood a little larger than you bargained for. (Warner Bros.)
My wife had the first whack. “I went out with a baseball bat, but she wasn’t there,” she said.
“You realize you could have got sprayed?” I asked.
Her voice was monotone, the cold, murderous voice of exhaustion. “Yeah, but she’d be dead. It’d be so worth it.”
I bought stuff skunks dislike and air freshener. Lots of air freshener. All the different brands.
I tied dryer bags of Stank Skank’s least favorite things all around the deck. (The air freshener was for us.) My fingers were good and numb by the end, but that was a small price. We put as much noise and light on the area as we could.
It seemed to get her out from under the deck, but lonely boys with time on their hands still came looking for a little stinking tenderness at night. Periodic whiffs of her jilted lovers’ agonies sent us spiraling into Post Traumatic Skunk Disorder.
We built a snow berm around the deck to make it harder to use as a kiosk for their scented love notes. With the help of used kitty litter we seem to be making progress. The attacks are fewer, but I won’t declare victory until we can invite company into our house again.
The arrival of March means our snow fortress is melting. I hope this doesn’t mean a pick up in business for the brothel.
And my wife’s uterus? Someone explained it this way: She was smelling the pheromones of the dominant female in heat. Her body was syncing itself to that lead.
I was a little surprised at how easily my wife rolled over for a skunk. But I felt better when I recalled that she was about to go get her Alpha crown back with a baseball bat. Now that’s my girl.
Snoozing on the Sofa 
Stink, stinky, stinkiest.
I empathize, completely.
http://markbialczak.com/2014/09/04/ellie-b-got-the-skunk-shot-right-between-the-eyes/
We fortified around our shed last summer. We floodlighted the backyard at sunset. (Our neighbors must have loved us but nary a word, bless ’em.) Still Ellie B aka Dogamous Pyle took the hit. And she still carries the whiff when it rains, 1,000 doses of Nature’s Miracle later, Scott.
Good stinkin’ luck.
My online research indicates that a mixture of peroxide, baking soda, and dish soap is an excellent homemade deodorizer. But since we don’t know exactly where our little lady sprayed, I haven’t been able to test it. Poor Ellie B. That has to be a horrible experience.
Yes, a direct hit to a pet will never, ever be forgotten, Scott. If I had ovaries they would be forever clenched.
Just one of many reasons why we’re not strong enough to have ovaries.
Indeed.
I am simultaneously laughing and sympathetically gagging. I do hope you are able to kick out your house guest soon. By the way, your wife sounds like an awesome bad ass.
My wife doesn’t have a large body, but most of it is spine.
Well played.
Oh that so sucks… I’m dying laughing. Sorry about that.
So funny, you have a skunk brothel under your deck.
Will she have little skunk babies under there? Little bastard skunk babies testing out their brandy new stink glands under your house?
This has to be my very favorite post of yours. Love it.
A brothel is bad enough. We don’t need to open a maternity ward. She can hatch her little stinkers someplace else.
Maybe it’d be good for the kids, you know, a lesson on the birds and the bees. And skunks. They’d get an extra good education if they got to smell the process too.
Before K was born, we fostered a pregnant cat so J could be involved in the birth… He learned loads.
That cat didn’t have a white stripe down its back, did it?
No. Calico. You should catch her in a have a heart trap and see if she’s met mr. right.
You wanna stop by and have some girl talk with her?
No need, I’m sure you can come by a have-a-heart with no problem. Just think how cute little baby skunks would be. And you know, some people keep them as pets.
I’ll let you have first pick of the litter.
That’s okay, We’ve got too many pets as is, but you could just have his scent glands removed and have a lovely pet. Let me know how it turns out.
Heck yes! -> Her voice was monotone, the cold, murderous voice of exhaustion. “Yeah, but she’d be dead. It’d be so worth it.”
Sometimes a woman does what a woman has to do.
Reblogged this on The Dependent Independent and commented:
Austin H. has his Post Traumatic Snow Disorder, and you have Post Traumatic Skunk Disorder. …Here, the skunks add to the assortment of pests around the house. Worse than the noise ’n’ turds of the mice here.
We dealt with the mice last winter. They must not like to smell skunks because we haven’t seen any this year. Maybe wildlife has to take turns. Thanks for the reblog.
😦 You have to deal with all of the above? Really sorry to hear that.
There are worse things (although a really dense blast of skunk juice can make you forget that for a minute).
Maybe an underground bunker is the answer to your problems. I hear they can zombie proof them so I figure skunk proof would be a snap. Does your wife watch those NBC shows on Friday night about wives killing husbands? My wife loves those so I make sure we don’t have any baseball bats in the house.
My wife’s husband killing medium of choice is Lifetime Network. I prefer that she keeps a baseball bat because you never see the poison coming.
Well that’s why South Africans build our houses with bricks, just like that third pig. And no wolf or skunk or any other beastly prostitute is gonna blow our house down…
PS – I didn’t know Bambi and his friends stayed in your garden? Where’s the bunny?
The bunnies are all over the place, too. Just waiting for the chance to squeeze through the sticks and straw we makes our houses from.
I thought it’s made from wood. That’s how much I know.