More Skunk Lore

Obsessing about a badly injured skunk has been sort of a steam escape valve for me, and Lord knows we all need those. I mean, it's business as usual for me to be hyperfocused on and fussing over some badly compromised wild thing, but this hurt skunk has really stretched the limits of my ingenuity and forced me to be patient and wait for slow improvement. I like to fix things. I like to fix people and animals, if I can. I use nature, positivity, time and good food to do my witchery, sometimes a little medicine. But this skunk cannot be fixed neatly or quickly. That's not to say he can't be fixed at all.

 SugarBean showed up March 7 and had been more and more dependent on my food subsidy as the weeks went on. There were a few days near the end of March when it actually hurt to watch him crippling around the yard. One beautiful warm day he sort of lay around on the grass in broad daylight, and when he wanted to get up he had to use his head to roll over on his side and kind of pry himself up. That was really hard to watch. That was when I got kind of frantic about him and started trying to dream up ways to catch him in a carrier and transport him to the Ohio Wildlife Center in Columbus. I was able to get him in a cat carrier, where he slept overnight in a rainshower, dry and protected. So OK. I could easily catch him... but for what? Once I found out that Ohio Wildlife Center likely would not try to operate on him, I had to fish or cut bait. I thought of calling a couple of people who might be willing to come shoot him for me, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. If he still showed interest in food; if there was even the whisper of a chance that this poor little wreck could turn out to be a viable skunk, I owed it to SugarBean to keep trying. He was certainly trying!

So I adopted the role of nurse/caregiver, and kept the nutritious food coming. I was pretty much winging it, trying to keep SugarBean well supplied with protein and calcium. So far, soft-boiled eggs, cottage cheese, chopped spinach, chopped pear, strawberries, fresh corn off the cob, mandarin orange,  sunflower hearts, sliced almonds, and cooked chicken have all been hits. Kitten chow and dog kibble are both appreciated. I'm not sure there's much you could offer a skunk that it would refuse. I've managed to feed that little skunk most every day for almost two months. I didn't mind. It was a privilege, and I have thoroughly enjoyed interacting with him.

Phoebe came around the corner of the house, looking for me, and found this scene. She'd been calling for me, but I didn't answer, for obvious reasons. I heard her breathe, "Oh my GOD" in a sort of "This would be going on whether I was here to witness it or not" voice. I quietly handed her my phone and she grabbed a couple of shots of her Crazy Skunk Lady mom, living dangerously as usual. 

I was a lot closer to him than I wanted to be. I had just set the dish down when the skunk ambled up, and I didn't have time to back off! At that point it seemed I'd do more harm by trying to waddle backward, and probably tip over like a brown marmorated stinkbug, lying there waving my legs, than just by staying in place until he was done eating. Good thing my knees still work pretty well. Ha ha! That was an epic squat. 

Taken with my iPhone. I was right on top of him!  And that's how Phoebe found us. I love the possessive little paws, placed right in the food. As if, once I'd given him the meal, I was going to rescind it? You never know...

Obviously, a telephoto lens is to be preferred for both parties' comfort and safety. 

Mmm, chicken.

Pignosin' his kibble. I just love the snowy Afro.

I took to setting his food and water just outside his little mailbox home so he wouldn't have to use that poor busted leg so much. 

He took to that mailbox like a duck to water, and he spent the better part of two weeks sleeping almost around the clock in its toasty soft confines, coming out only to eat and poop. I love to creep up, peek in there and see ebony fur. 

Each day, he'd emerge to poop. I cleaned up his little noodly piles with a shovel. But not while this gorgeous little moth, a Grapevine Epimenus, was doting on them! Now you know what skunk poop looks like. I'll confess I didn't, before this. But whoa. 

Come to find out, I've already used the tag "skunk scat" on this blog, so I'm gonna have to go see what I said about it!

Here is a video of SugarBean motivating toward his carrier on March 30, before the mailbox palace was in place. At this point I still thought it was a female, so pardon the narration. This was as well as I had seen him move since he first appeared, and hope sprang in my heart that he might eventually be OK after all. His locomotion is certainly not great, but it's a whole lot better than it was. I'm so amused at the thought that a wild skunk would willingly go into a cat carrier and spend time in there. Just one of the many lessons this little mustelid has to teach me.

           

 SugarBean has sure taught me a lot about skunks, about trust, about patience and love.  And about dog training! My hope is that, having come to know this one virtual skunk, some readers might not be so quick to freak out, call pest control,  or at the very least, run around shouting and waving their arms. It's just a small, calm, sweet, black and white animal, who happens to be packing a bomb. Your job is to stay cool so he doesn't have to deploy it.

My Funky Valentine

I heard a little voice this morning. It said, "Get out and hike before it rains." 

I listened. Good things happen when I listen to the little voice.

Sure enough, when I looked at the radar, there was a sludge of green coming up out of the southwest that was going to make things, already saturated, even wetter. Hurry.

I threw on a raincoat, bitchin' waxed cowboy hat, ear warmers, and I grabbed my camera raincoat, too. No question I was going to take the big rig. There was something out there waiting for me. The little voice nudged and nudged. Get out there! It's waiting!

I didn't know where I was going. I had about four destinations in mind. I cleared my mind, let it go blank. I took a left at the county road and had driven only a half-mile when I saw this in the neighbor's cow pasture.  YAAASSSSS

The First Daylight Skunk of 2018!!

Exxxx-cellent. I drove another 1/4 mile to safely stash my car, and trotted back. She was still there, nosing for grubs.

I know skunks well enough to keep in mind the wind direction before I approached. Dang it! Wind out of the west. It was going to blow my scent right to the skunk. But there was only one place I could get a shot at her and that was the bar gate, which was directly west of the skunk. Oh well. Here goes. I crouched down to shoot, knowing it would be a limited-time offer.

Sure enough, her head snapped up. She'd caught my scent--the only thing that means much to a skunk. Sound and sight mean not much at all. But the whiff of face cream and soap...

Through the corral boards, I got a shot of her as she trundled away. Darn it!

But I didn't give up. I climbed the bar gate and followed her. And was humbled to find she had vanished utterly from sight. I couldn't even hear her footsteps. In that short time, she'd plunged down a steep hill and into the woods. Well, OK. It was still nice to see the First Daylight Skunk of 2018.

I decided to explore this gorgeous steep pasture, which had been woods not so long ago. Around here, anything is fair game for grazing. What choice do people have? So they fell the forest, seed grass in and put cows on the flanks of the steep hills. It doesn't work very well; they wind up feeding a lot of hay.

I was loping along the slope when I saw that little skunk making her way through a strip of woodland, headed for me. Hooray!! She popped out into the open and I quickly circled until I was downwind of her.  I was sashaying left as she came on.

I knew when I could smell her that she couldn't smell me. Using the wind would be my Cloak of Invisibility. Because skunks don't use their eyes much at all. 

I had decided this was a female skunk because it wasn't very big, and was rather fine-boned. I got a female vibe off her. Man, she kept coming at me. I was chuckling and crab-walking as fast as I could to stay downwind and just off her projected path. It was a little like quartering a very small tornado on the prairie. 

It was a thrill to be so close to her, and for her to be unafraid. She didn't know I was there. It was all about whether or not she could smell me. I got long, leisurely looks at her. She was a pretty fancy little animal. I liked her wide stripes, and big white tailtip. Her tail is a bit unusual, being grizzled white and black, so that it has a grayish appearance. I'll know her if I encounter her again.

She looked directly at me, and decided she didn't like the looks of me. 

And she hurried away.

I followed at a respectful distance, happy to wait for the innate forgetfulness of skunks to take over and help her relax. I could see she wasn't scared, just a bit suspicious. I smiled as I framed this shot, thinking about the little inkblot I'd framed so many thousands of times in the last 12 years. I miss him dearly. But a wary skunk will do. Even if I can't run up behind it and throw my arms around it and give it a kiss.

 If I'm learning anything, I'm learning to go with what I have. I try not to spend a whole lot of time yearning for what I don't. Sure, there are days when it's all I can do. We all have those.

And as if she got my thought, that skunk turned exactly as Chet Baker used to, to check behind to see if I was coming along. I was floored by the perfection of the scene, and framed it quickly, just as I would have had that inkblot been my sweet friend.

Zooming in quickly, I caught her paw lifted--Chet used to do that, too. 

Was this skunk a messenger? If the thought comes to me that a creature might be acting as a messenger, she likely was.

That's how it works, at least in my world. Thought becomes truth. Who can say Chet didn't send this animal to me, didn't nudge me out the door this morning? Or maybe the little voice was Ida, or DOD. There was a conjunction of little voice, irrepressible urge to hike and a beautiful encounter. Thank you, whoever kicked me out the door.

After nabbing this shot of my funky Valentine, I had plenty of time to catch up with her. She began digging, in the sweet forgetfulness of a busy little animal. 

There's no question she was onto me. But she was also absorbed in digging pits and finding food. 

She was thin from the long winter's sleep, and she had work to do.

She stopped to scratch an itch, doglike, with her hind leg.

The camera caught the moment those long hind claws raked through her fetid ivory locks. 

I imagine when you've been in a den asleep for weeks, the fleas have a field day with you.

She was so doglike and so catlike as she luxuriated in a good scratch. Little CatDog. 

She dug again, and this time she dug deep.

This wasn't just turning over old cowpies...

This was excavation! Skunks dig neat funnel-shaped pits as they go along. Some are small and some are big, but they tend to be conical.  And there's often a round nose impression or two at the bottom.

She unearthed a sizeable object and quickly backed up. She rolled it along with her front paws several feet backward, as if to get all the dirt off it before eating it.  See how her tail is bent under from the motion?

Got me sumpin'.

This is the best I could do for detail. You can see her pink jaw and white teeth, and back of that,  a sort of greenish-gray grub with clear segmentation. Not sure, but I'd guess it might be a longhorn beetle larva. It was big and very chewy, that much I could tell. I did not hear cracking as you would had it been a pupa in a shell.

Whatever it was, it was goood!!

I enjoy watching animals work, unbothered. I'm not sure there's much I would have enjoyed more than following this skunk for forty minutes on a rainy day in mid-February. 

Oddly, I just recorded the audio version of my True Nature column, "Crepuscular," for the March/April issue of Bird Watcher's Digest.  

The column, written a year ago, is all about night stalking of skunks. 

It's a little primer for anyone who wants a richer life. All you have to do is get outside. Promise.

BWD is having a Valentine's Day special--

One year for only $14! Why not subscribe? But come back here for mo skunk.

She raised her head again, sniffing for me. But I was still downwind. I assure you, I could smell her!

Hmm. Something is amiss here, but I can't smell it. What that big gray lump that clicks is, I do not know. But it hasn't hurt me yet, and the grubbing is good here.

In case you're wondering, it never occurred to her to raise her tail and threaten me, just as it never occurred to me that I might get sprayed. That wasn't going to happen. I go into skunk following with a positive attitude. I take care to stay downwind; I scramble quietly to get out of their way when they walk up to me, and everything takes care of itself. Perhaps the key is ascribing no malintent to the skunk.  I don't think of them as evil or out to get me. I am not afraid of them.  Quite the opposite. I know they are very afraid of me. 

As I followed her, I wrote an extended haiku, a sort of tribute to her innocence.

My scent makes skunks run.

I'm the scariest beast here.

Carrier of death

I hold the power

Archetype of ancestors

I know it's not true

I am no better 

No more ruler of these woods

Than squirrel or skunk.

Humans live to prove

Our superiority

Over beast, fish, fowl

I am outnumbered

By mindless majority

Who fear this sweet skunk

Who wishes only

to be left alone to dig

Crunch down her larvae;

Live her good skunk life.

No wonder she fears people.

She is without sin.

I had put this little animal on alert for long enough. I didn't want to pester her any more. 

So when she moved on, I hung back.

She stopped one more time to scratch herself.

Farewell, sweet skunk. Perhaps we'll meet again someday. 

She's the little inkblot in the left lower center below. I started following her up by the farmhouse you can see on the ridge. Several hills and valleys traversed. Skunks travel. They may look low-slung and not good for the distance, but they move it on out. 

I climbed the east bargate, big rig draped in plastic, for it had started to rain again. 

Climbing fences with a big camera, like skunk stalking, is a bit of an art in itself.

I headed out over the hill, even though the rain was picking up. I had the right gear, and I liked the way the rain made the muddy road shine. It drew me onward.

This is the brim of my waxed cowboy hat, which was streaming with rain. I kept dipping my head to let it run off. 

I found a fox squirrel's stash of hickory nut shells. A midden, more than a stash. All the goodie is gone.  This seems to be the time of year when hickory nuts are center stage. More on that in my next posts.

Caught this image of the Toothless Lady in the rain. I hadn't noticed the beauty of her shingles until they were wet. Like seashells with the rain's luster.

In a shed, I found a skunk turd. Not terribly old. How do I know it's a skunk turd? 

It has a green stinkbug carapace in it. There are not many people who will eat a stinkbug. 

Skunks are one of them. 

I identify skunk droppings by all the shiny beetle parts in them. Skunks are hell on beetles and their larvae. Go skunks!  

Beetles are among the most abundant animals on earth. When asked what the study of natural history had taught him about the Creator, evolutionary biologist J.B.S. Haldane is supposed to have said, "God has an inordinate fondness for beetles." 

I walked on until I got to the farmstead. I wanted to see the couch in the rain. The last time I shot it, it was covered with snow. Either one works for me. I didn't expect to get fond of this couch when I first beheld it, but I love shooting it. I also love how the poison ivy vines make the chimney look like it's moving, like a person's head in an old daguerrotype.

 Chet Baker was always climbing up into its lap, sniffing around. He found a little toy in it once, and some kind of crumbs, which he ate. God knows how long they'd been in there. Sixty years?

I went around to the side of the house to see if I could find the daffodils coming up.

And just like magic, there they were. By gum.

And in my mind's eye, the sun was out and warm and the jonquils were wafting sweet, and suddenly into the frame came the best little photobomber anyone ever had, headed over to give me a kiss.

I have sweet memories. I'm going with what I have. Grief into gratitude.

 I made it back to the car, only about a mile beyond the Toothless Lady, as the rain picked up. 

When I got home, I went straight to the greenhouse, which has, mysteriously, been a source mostly of drear lately. Not sure what's wrong, but all the plants are languishing. Maybe the fact that it never gets any sun at all? Think that could have something to do with it?

 And I found that my Christmas cactus, which famously thrive on neglect, had pushed forth a single, utterly spectacular Valentine. BOOM. Well, thank you! Your timing: Fabulous. As is your form.

And Goliath the geranium, more than 5' across now, and getting its leaves scorched by the heater, was full of red-hot cheer.

 This extended skunk, grub, turd, flower and rain reverie has been brought to you by my inexplicable need to share what I have.

Especially for Erin and Kate, who love skunks and might just need these photos and words today.

                                                           Happy Valentine's Day!