Skunked and loving it

Lately, we've noticed little divots in our yard, as if miniature woodland creatures had been struggling with their tiny 7 irons in our fairway. T was pretty sure we had a skunk assisting us with maggot removal during the night, much to the detriment of our yard. Sure enough, last night he was doing his shoulder exercises (which involve trapping the end of a huge rubber band in a closed door. The physical therapist recently has been upping the strength of the rubber band. I hope he knows what he's doing, because that door's glass and I don't want to see T smeared up against it or pulled bodily through it!) ... now, where was I? Oh, yeah, so T had his rubber band trapped in the back door and was facing the back yard when Mr. Skunk sauntered into place and began nosing around ... literally. Rooting up maggots with his nose. Through our grass. Leaving divots.

Never one to miss a fauna photo op (hey! you think we should have tried to scare him away? You city person, you!) I ran for the camera, went into the spare bedroom where the vantage point is best and one window already has the screen removed, and carefully cranked the window open, trying to be quiet. Unfortunately, our humid weather had swelled the wood some, so it made a little "pop!" sound. Mr Skunk promptly executes a little hop in place a la Pepe Le Pew (I'm so sure I'm spelling that wrong, correct me somebody please!) and dashes under the deck. Very sad. New camera, a rather gorgeous skunk, and no photo op. Sigh.

An hour later, when T is in bed, I see Mr. Skunk again. The window in the bedroom is already open, so I somewhat nervously tiptoe in to take the pictures, hoping against hope that Mr. Skunk isn't afraid of sudden lights going off near him. In which case, neither T nor I will get any sleep for the stink of it all! But the story has a happy ending. Other than the occasional lifted tail, and maybe one slight warning shot (or was that my nervous imagination?), we all cooperated peacably enough. Luckily for me, Simba didn't figure out what was going on till I was nearly finished. Then he decided to growl at the back door, and I hastily closed the window and snatched him away before he could hurt Mr. Skunk's feelings. And all our nasal cavities.

THE END.