When we got back on Sunday night, Pete happened to look out back. Not sure why, but when he did he found something had dug a hole under our patio. Now, to give you a little back history on why this is important, in 2005 we had something dig under our patio in the spring, exactly in the same place as this hole. We thought, "Oh, maybe it's a rabbit" and just kept covering the hole back up with dirt. After 3-4 days of the animal digging the hole back up, we decided to borrow a live-trap and see what we caught. I woke up at 6am on Pete's birthday (April 27th) and discovered we had indeed caught something. We had caught A SKUNK! I went and woke him up and said, "Happy Birthday! You caught a skunk!". He was soooo not thrilled. Well, I told him not to worry, I would call animal control and get it taken care of while he was at work. I was babysitting back then - a little 2 yr old named Gracie. When she arrived and Madie and Noah woke up, I showed them the skunk through the window. They thought it was so exciting. :-). The cage was right up against the house on the patio, so they got a clear view of him. Well, later in the morning, I called animal control and told them about the skunk we had caught and they told me that because we caught it in our OWN trap, they couldn't do anything about it. I'm like, "So, what am I supposed to do?". This was their reply..... "Shoot it.". That's it. Like it was just a fact of life. I told them I have 2 2yr olds and a 4 yr old and I'm supposed to find a gun and shoot this thing in my backyard?!!!! I was so mad!! They were absolutely no help at all. So, thanks to my best friend Michelle, I was able to call a Critter Control place that came out and would put him to sleep (not the animal control guy..the skunk). Pete decided to lasso the cage and pull it farther into the yard, so the guy could get to it easier. I didn't want him to do it, but we know how men listen sometimes. ;-) Anyway, he left the rope on and though I called all my neighbors and told them to keep away from our yard, apparently the rope was too much for our 6 yr old neighbor to resist and I look outside and find him and his cousin pulling the rope and the cage through our yard. I opened the patio door to yell at them and immediantely smell that the skunk has sprayed everywhere! Nice. So, I am NOT having a good day! Eventually the Critter Control guy comes and I pay him $100 to kill this skunk, who has already sprayed and made the whole house stink, and we cover up the hole and pretend the whole thing never happened. SOOOOO, the reason for this story is to tell you how THRILLED we were when we discovered this new hole. It's like it's happening all over again. We are pretty convinced it's another skunk, but it's like waiting for a prize. So, I thought I'd post about it and take a poll. See what you all think we have hiding under our patio. Last time it was a skunk who had recently given birth to baby skunks. Maybe this time it's a rabid badger or a pregnant groundhog. Guess we'll find out soon enough. Hopefully this time I'll get someone from the conservation department to lend a hand and keep any and all "ropes" away from my curious neighbors. Oh, and I took a close-up picture of the footprints it left behind. Maybe that's a clue....
1 comment:
Skunks mate in the spring and have their babies six weeks later. The babies don't have sacks that work, and the mother's sack is supposed to be empty while she's "nursing" her young.
We went through this two years ago, and now we just expect to have skunks under our sidewalk or patio, etc, each spring.
It was a riot watching the parade of skunks at 9:30 each night. They don't go into their hole until the evening (supposedly) and then they leave at dawn and go back into the woods, so the mom can train her children how to run away from cars on the road that goes through the woods.
It seems to me it's a skunk, but it's not the time of the year for skunks to crawl under patios. This is the time of the year for them to be holing up in the woods and getting ready for the winter.
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