Raccoons Amongst Us
Growing up on a farm out in the countryside you would think that I would have been acquainted with all sorts of animals. But thinking back, I only remember pigeons roosting in the lofts of the barn, a muskrat that lived down by the drain and a one-time viewing of a weasel. Of course we had mice and frogs and polliwogs but nothing cute like the little woodland animals that I have seen as an adult.
Who would ever think that I would see my first raccoon in our desert home in Southern Utah?
We had heard the scratching and bumps during the night and thought we must have a cat on the roof. But one night we awoke to the sounds that were particularly loud so we turned on the outside light and surprised a large mother raccoon and several little ones munching away on the purple grapes hanging from the vines on our patio arbor. Who knew that raccoons had little homes hidden in our populated neighborhood?
Every Family Must Have a Skunk Story
When my husband was about 16 years old he was working on a farm over in Weston which is about 10 miles west of town. He was riding his small Sears All State Scooter along the canal bank checking on sprinkler pipes. He turned down off the bank into the field to go back to the farm when he noticed a mother skunk and three babies right in his path. He couldn't stop fast enough so he jumped off the scooter which continued on and tipped over right by the mother skunk. She sprayed the flip out of the scooter and the skunks and my husband took off running in the opposite direction! Later that day he ventured back to get his scooter but decided the best thing to do was leave it there for a couple of days. After several washes he started using the scooter again but he could always catch a whiff of skunk on his drive back and forth from home to work. He always said "Better the scooter than me!"
One More....
My husband was working on the same farm later in the summer and his boss's relatives came from Boise to visit. They had a big black Labrador house dog that came with them in their station wagon. One day it followed my husband down to the river where he was shooting carp during lunch time. The big black lab cornered a skunk and it sprayed the flip out of the dog. It was yelping and rolling around in the dirt and ran back up to the house. The relatives were so mad at my husband and blamed him for the accident. To make matters worse, they had to head back to Boise that afternoon. They washed and washed the dog in tomato juice but it was still smelling pretty rank when they put it in the station wagon and started for home. For sure they had a momentous five-hour ride home! My husband and his boss had a really good laugh - they weren't his boss's favorite relatives anyway.
Okay One More.....This story belongs to my brother.
The summer of 1965, after Dad had had his dump truck accident (September/October 1964), I had dropped out of the U. and returned to the farm. We had built the new milking barn to enable Dad to continue to milk cows, and I had returned for summer school to try to make up for lost school time. A friend from home had captured a litter of skunk babies. He had had their "skunk" glands removed by a vet (or nearly removed as it turned out). My friend offered me one for which I paid $5 or $10. I named her "Daisy". I was living in my brother's home in Murray while they were away for the summer in school somewhere. Skunks are very playful much like cats except not so aloof. Daisy loved to weave herself in and out of the drapes. When annoyed, instinct sets in, they turn their back to you, and raise their tail. It was then, and only then, that one could catch a faint whiff of Daisy's skunkness. Their personal habits are very much like cats, and they bury their poop. Hence, I kept a litter box which worked nicely. I kept her in a box outside with a wire door on top when I was not there. She was a novelty to the kids in the neighborhood. I came home one day, and she was gone. I presume one of the neighbor kids let her out. End of story.
They Just Keep Coming!
From My Brother....of course
We lived next door to a radio personality who did the morning show on a local news station. Our bedroom window was just a few feet away and just above the window well by their living room. In the middle of the night my wife and I were awakened by the unmistakable sound of a high power rifle shot just outside our window. I said that some neighbor had probably shot his wife, but that I was not about to go investigate. I said we'll flip on the radio in the morning and then we'll know if there was a problem. And we did. We tuned to the news first thing and could tell immediately there was a "neighborhood situation". The morning radio regulars were joking about exiling the famous personality to the corner of the broadcast room as far away as possible because he smelled of skunk. It turns out that he had heard some noise in his window well in the night and discovered a skunk trapped in the bottom. Since he had to get up early and wanting to solve the problem, he simply loaded his deer rifle and shot the skunk. It did not immediately die, however, and as its final act in mortality, sprayed him mercilessly. He had no choice but to go to work wearing his new fragrance.
The Best By Far.....
This second story is somewhat related; Same house. Our window well. My wife and I were preparing to go on our very first overseas adventure to Europe. We had arranged for our neighbor's mother to stay in our home and watch the kids. The day before we were to leave, I discovered a skunk trapped in our window well. It would have been intolerable to leave the skunk there for two weeks while we were gone, and especially with the neighbor's mother-in-law in charge. Taking a lesson from the previous story, I sought advice on other way to solve the problem. One of my law partners who was a mechanical engineer, a lawyer, a rancher and an otherwise practical fellow, suggested we cover the top of the window well to seal the space and run a hose from the exhaust pipe of our Suburban into the window well so as to asphyxiate the little fellow with carbon monoxide poisoning. Sounded like a great idea. I pumped that small space with exhaust for about an hour. Two results: the seal on the window was not so great, and I also pumped exhaust into the basement which about killed all of us. We could see the skunk through the window. He got very sick and was convulsing. but he wouldn't die. It was him or us. I had to disconnect the hose...and I still had a problem; a very sick skunk. Seeking advice from other, I learned that skunks did not like to be trapped all that much, and if one were to wrap a cloth around a broomstick so he could get some traction, most skunks will climb out on their own. Well.....unless they are poisoned and half dead. Without a better idea, I rigged up this broomstick and put it down the window well. Since we were leaving early in the morning, I kept a vigil throughout the night checking every couple of hours. When I made my 4:00 am check I was delighted to find that the skunk had recovered sufficiently to climb out on his own, and we were all relieved to be able to go on our trip without an unresolved skunk problem.
Nothing Cuter Than a Fox
When we first moved to Southern Utah we purchased a home which was located up in the hills where the houses were sparsely scattered. It wasn't unusual to find large scorpions in our homes and an occasional tarantula on the road. Some nights we could hear coyotes yelping in the distance. The real treat was catching sight of a little fox running across the road. The sightings were usually at night when our headlights would startle them. We used to see a little white fox and that was exciting. Because of home construction and inevitable growth, the fox population and other animals moved further back into the hills. What a gift --a few months ago -- 33 years later -- to come up over the hill to our home and catch sight of a little red fox scampering across the road. Perhaps they have learned to exist in the neighborhood just like our grape-loving raccoons!
