"It's not going to work," Ryan said with a blank stare on his face while staring at my latest contraption.
"Oh it'll work alright. It's foolproof. In the morning, we'll come down here, our little furry buddy will be trapped and then... BABLOOM!" I exclaimed as a stream of sweat dripped from my nose.
My son shook his head slightly, smiled briefly, and began walking back up the hill toward our house. "Whatever you say."
In the area where we live, we are constantly dealing with a wide variety of critters. Our home sits adjacent to a farm which consists of hundreds of acres of woods, open fields and ponds. That farm borders even larger farms, so naturally, it's almost like living in a zoo.
In the early spring of this year, I couldn't help but notice a very noxious and bothersome aroma permeating my equipment shed which sits down the hill from our home and beside a patch of woods on one side and a hay field to the rear. Obviously a very arrogant and smelly skunk had decided to become the latest squatter beneath the shed. I've dealt with groundhogs, deer, opossums, raccoons, snakes, bees, and other wild land creatures that thought my shed was a wonderful place to raise a family. To be totally candid, I'v never had a deer take up residence under my building as they generally prefer the bean patch in the garden which sits adjacent to the building.
Several years ago, a pesky groundhog decided to burrow under the building and live there for all eternity. With the garden in close proximity, it would be akin to me building a house beside the Sizzler. The hog simply eats it's fill and returns to it's home next door. Of course there was always a sniper lurking high above, hanging out of the bathroom window, ready to send the 'ol woodchuck on the hog heaven. And then the skunk came.
It should be noted that my wife is an avid animal lover. She simply doesn't want to see any living thing harmed, in any way. When I say any living thing, I mean any living thing... including skunks. So, in keeping the peace, I borrowed a live trap from a friend and set out to trap the smelly, unwanted guest. In two weeks, I succeeded in catching three cats, one groundhog, one opossum and one very angry raccoon. No, I did not catch the skunk.
"That's it, if I lay eyes on that darned skunk, I'm blasting it!" I said to Kristi one day after releasing yet another cat from the cage.
"It's really not harming anything. It does stink, but at least it's not near the house," she said, while rubbing her little fuzzy dog.
"Well,you know that skunks are nocturnal, right? Have you noticed those little holes all around the house, in the mulch, and everywhere else? Well, guess who's doing that? Skunk, that's who," I quipped. "And guess who lets their little dog out at night to do it's business?" I kept on.
I could see the wheels turning inside her head, surely wondering how people would respond to her arriving at her school teaching job reeking of skunk after a late night spraying.
"Do you really think we could be sprayed?" she asked with wide eyes.
I was careful to make my facial expression as ominous and sinister as possible. "Absolutely. Most pets and people get sprayed after surprising a wayward skunk in the dark. Takes months for the smell to go away. I'm glad I'm not out there after dark! We should probably stock up on tomato juice just in case you need to bath in it."
"Kill it!" she exclaimed, while simultaneously squeezing her mutt a little tighter. Just like that, we got serious about exterminating the skunk.
"Dad, what are we going to do with all of this ammonia?" Ryan asked. He and I had our arms loaded with jugs of ammonia while we made our way toward the shed.
"Well son, we're going to fumigate the underside of the building and when the skunk is forced to come out in search of fresh air, you blast him."
"Oh," came the not so convinced reply.
"Go ahead, take a whiff. See if you could stand it under there with the place drowned in ammonia."
The boy removed the lid from one of the jugs and breathed in through his nose. Immediately his eyes rolled back in his head and he began to wheeze. "Yeah, that should do it."
I put several jugs into my garden sprayer and coated the underside of the building with the nasty smelling ammonia, and then drilled tiny holes in the floor and shot it through to be sure I didn't miss any part. Then we waited. And waited, And waited. "Dad, I don't think he's coming out."
"Patience my boy, patience."
We sat on the cool grass, staring at the burrow facing the woods, sure that the skunk would come racing to fresh air at any minute. It never did.
"How the heck could anything survive having five gallons of ammonia dumped on it?" I exclaimed as I burst into the kitchen. "I mean really! I can barely stand it and I was sitting fifty feet away!"
"Dad, we should just give up," Ryan dejectedly said, while flopping down onto the couch.
"Never! I'll think of something!"
Sure enough, I did think of something.
"Ryan!!! I need your help!" I barked as I looked up the stairs toward the boy's room.
"Let me guess. More skunk contraptions?"
I was beginning to think my son was doubting my ability to trap and potentially kill a stupid skunk. "Yeah, but I have a brilliant idea this time!"
My brilliant idea consisted of closing off all but one exit, forcing the skunk out of the only available route when it came out to feed late at night. We would take an old roll of fence with tightly woven wire and build a corral in which our furry, nasty buddy could not escape. We then would build a trap door above the hole along the wall of the building in which a trip wire would be situated that would cause the door to drop when the skunk unknowingly nudged it on the way out of the hole. Pure genius.
"Now we got him," I said, staring down at the contraption we'd just completed. "Tomorrow we'll come down to find our little buddy wandering aimlessly around inside the corral, with the door closed, unable to outsmart us this time. Then we'll send him on to that big equipment shed in the sky!"
Our corral has sat empty for over a week now. The little door still teeters above the hole. The trip wire is still firmly in it's place. The skunk is still around. Me? I'm thinking about simply burning the building to the ground.
