The STINKer

Our house stinks. Man does it stink. Here's why (and I have to back up and give you a little history).

The weekend before Thanksgiving, my in-laws were in town and we discovered a stray dog. It's a blue Australian cattle dog and my father-in-law fed it. It never left. He's really a happy go-lucky dog. He's always excited to see us, jumping up and down, tail-waggin' kinda happy. We set up a dog bed in our garage (which cannot be closed - the door's busted). He's free to come and go, preferably go.
So we're watching a Christmas movie this afternoon, around 3pm, and he starts barking. We ignored him a while, and soon realized that it was more than just boredom. Hubby got up and looked out the window and said something like "O crap, don't go outside." He stood there and watched, getting our (My kid's and my) curiosity up. We 'ran' to the window to see what was the matter. The dog was very concerned with something in the far corner of the garage. After a while, I saw a very large skunk! about 5 feet from the door. The dog decided to remind it that it was leaving. The skunk said "bite me" and lifted its tail to give him access. Uggghh! Did you know that skunk spray is yellowish-green. It went outside the garage and my husband, not thinking, opened the door and went out after it. Luckily, we have a side door out of the garage that he could go through to go shoot the skunk. The smell swarmed into the house. Uggghhhh!

Hubby shot it (we have a great suspicion that he's rabid) and I went out with my gun to help. Hubby's gun has a bad set of sights. I got 3 shots out. The 1st shot missed. I hit him with my second. I thought he would be dead (hubby hit him a few times also) but he was still getting up, so I shot a 3rd time. He quit moving.

We tried to call the game warden. You know they don't answer on Sundays? Then the sheriff. The sheriff's deputy called back and said in essence, that he wanted nothing to do with this stinky mess. I thought that the county was supposed to be notified of rabid creatures. We buried him about a foot from where he died.

After burying him, we went for a walk in the pasture. It was getting dark so we weren't going far. We got to the pond pasture and stopped. The rabid skunk isn't the only new varmint to our property. We've lived here for almost 4 years and haven't seen even one little piggy. There is a large section of our pasture that has been shredded. In addition to their rooting around and tearing up several square yards, they have wallowed out a large deal of the pasture. The area torn up is larger than my house. Fortunately they can get under the fence and didn't bother tearing that up.

I'm sorry I haven't been posting news about the ranch and my riding. There has been very little to talk about and I have been really busy with school. I'll tell you soon about my trail ride and saddle issues.