The Great Skunk Caper

I love to mow the grass. 

 In Deltaville, we have a plot of land with nothing on it we call "the plowed field". 

I'm not sure why we call it that since I don't think it's ever been plowed... at least not in the last 40-50 decades. Anyway, whenever we were in Deltaville, I loved the job of cutting the plowed field. 

It meant I got to "drive" the riding lawn mower.

One evening while mowing, I noticed what I thought was a black and white trash bag blowing across the far end of the field.

Of course being the nature conscious kid I was, I went to retrieve the trash so I could throw it away when I went back to the house.

As I drew closer, I realized it wasn't a bag at all but some kind of animal.  "PUPPIES!" I thought, "and I'll have to keep them and raise them because they have no mother!"  I was very excited at the prospect of becoming the surrogate mother to some little furry baby black and white puppies.

Imagine my surprise, disappointment and sheer terror when I realized- not puppies- mamma skunk and babies!  I had been told that if you got sprayed by a skunk in the face, it would blind you for life.  Not to mention the smell that would never go away and that I'd have to live outside for weeks (this information was furnished by my male cousins and had to be the gospel truth because they were older and wiser).

So I circled the wagons so to speak.

And kept circling in my tight circle round and round and round.  The skunks paid no attention to me and seemed to have moved off to their den, but I knew better.  I knew those mamma skunks were like grizzlies and if their babies were bothered they would attack.  I was terrified to drive the tractor back to the house because that skunk could be lurking in the tall grass- or up a pole waiting to pounce.

Eventually it got dark.

And Dad starting to wonder where in the world I was.

So he walked up to the field.

And there I was, driving in circles and crying and yelling for help. 

All in all it ended well. 

I survived.



Skunks

What would a Deltaville blog be without a post on skunks?  When I was a kid, Deltaville and skunks went hand in hand.  I always knew I was getting close to Deltaville when I started smelling skunks.  I imagine the high number of skunks had a lot to do with the area still being very rural, and that "close" meant anywhere on the VA side of the Harry W. Nice Bridge.  Skunks were so prevalent that my grandparents had a "Skunk Crossing" sign by the steps to the trailer.  It didn't look anything like this photo. 

Anyway, while we could smell the skunks all the time, it was rare for us to actually see one.  Not surprising since they are primarily nocturnal and prefer sleeping in their burrow during the day.  My grandmother used to call them "polecats".  I used to think this was because they climbed up telephone poles, and for a while I was concerned I might get sprayed in an aerial assault while walking by telephone poles and tall pine trees at night.  Later in life, I learned that polecat- specifically the pole part- comes from either the French word poule for chicken or pulent for stinking.  I'm not sure but I think it's probably the stinking one.  And I don't speak a lick of French, I just read Wikipedia.  The Brat Child calls them "Stunks" which comes from the English word "Stunk" which means, well, stunk. 

And another little personal tidbit about skunks.  I love the smell of skunk.  Not the heavy eye burning throat constricting smell, but the smell you get when they've just walked through an area.  I know it's weird, but chalk it up to classical conditioning.  What's that you ask? It involves the presentation of a neutral stimulus (in this case skunk smell) with the presentation of an important stimulus (in this case Deltaville- my "happy" place).  Eventually the neutral stimulus becomes associated with the important one so that every time the neutral stimulus is presented, you get the reaction you  would have gotten from the important one.  Got that?  So Deltaville makes me calm and happy, I smell skunk whenever I go to Deltaville, eventually the smell of skunk makes me calm and happy.  Or I could say, think Pavlov's dogs. 

Stay Tuned for tomorrow's post which will hopefully be an illustrated story about my very first wild skunk encounter without trying to explain various psychological experimentation or techniques.

live skunk photos taken at the VA Living Museum