Our Little Visitor

We've had a very wet spring. Now that summer seems to have arrived, I decided to take a chance this morning and hang some laundry out to dry. I have a line strung over a raised deck between our detached garage and a tool shed. On a nice, sunny day, feeling the sunshine on my face and smelling the fresh scent of clean clothes almost makes doing laundry a pleasant chore. There is always the chance of clouds rolling in with rain, necessitating a mad dash to grab everything off the line, but I was ready to chance it.

Well . . .

I had just begun hanging the laundry when I heard a funny bumping noise, like apples falling off a tree onto the deck. But our apple tree doesn't have any fruit on it yet. I looked over at the little space between the deck and the shed just in time to see a fluffy black and white tail disappearing underneath.



What to do? What to do? I had already hung up two of my daughter's shirts. The skunk was under the deck, not up where I was. If I was very, very quiet, maybe I could finish hanging the laundry and the skunk and I could peacefully coexist until we could convince it to live somewhere else like the forest, the county dump, the bottom of a pond. I didn't care where it went as long as it was away.

Then the skunk chose to reemerge from under the deck. I decided not to move until it went somewhere else. It was between me and the house.

Little Pepe Le Pew and I would have been just fine except for that darn mosquito. (Did I mention we have had a lot of rain? The mosquito population has exploded.) Without thinking, I slapped at the mosquito. The noise got Pepe's attention and he began to rotate his tail end toward me. I quickly grabbed the laundry basket, jumped off the deck, around the fence and into the alley, where I was out of sight (and hopefully target range) of the little guy. After about a minute I quietly moved back onto the deck and removed my daughter's shirts from the line without attracting any more attention. Then I beat a quick retreat down the alley to the sidewalk and back to the house.

I think I'll stick to an electric dryer for a while. Anyone know how to get rid of a skunk?