Daily Archives: April 12, 2016

Skunked!

skunkI grew up a city boy. Now, as a city boy in a small mid-western city I was probably a lot more familiar with wildlife than someone born in a vast urban center, but I’m still not fully acquainted with some of the life skills you need to get by in the country, even though I’ve been living here for about twelve years.

Take for instance a burn pile. I’ve never maintained one properly. Despite the wife’s encouragement to burn ours sooner, it’s probably been eight years since I did anything with it. As a result, the burn pile had becomeĀ a towering mass of sticks and tree limbs. Worse, the manure pile was too close. Manure, you see, is inflammable. (We have so many sticks and tree limbs because we have so many trees. In any big storm we lose a lot of branches.)

Anyway, Sunday I finally went out and started organizing the burn pile so it was safer to burn, and then I had to dig out a safety zone away from the manure. I was out there for most of the day, fairly tired and sore, and right in the final section I found a skunk! Turns out there was a little burrow hidden on the edge of the burn pile.