Skunky Prequel

Yesterday we shot the skunk. We retrieved a shovel from the shed and interred the carcass below the ditch bank. We went home and related the evening's doings. Which reminded Dad of his youth, and so he regaled us with stories from the "early days" on the high plains.

The most memorable account of the evening was a tale concerning Dad and his brother, Carl checking their live traps before going to school. One of the traps contained a skunk, so Carl opened the gate and the critter crawled out. But instead of running off, it stood its ground. The boys knew that so long as the skunk did not have its forefeet planted that it could not spray them, so Carl quickly grabbed the animal by the tail and hoisted it into the air. They went merrily along the way, thinking it might be fun to release the beastie in the school yard.

But of course to get out of the field and onto the road, they had to go through a four-strand barbwire fence. "You go on through," said Carl, "and I'll hand him to ya." So Delbert crawled through the fence. Carl lifted the skunk to pass it over, but as Delbert reached for it, the skunk grabbed the top wire with its front paws. And Carl was the recipient of the angry animal's expression of displeasure!

Chicken Thief #T

Our last visit to the neighborhood involved the egg gathering and the milking lesson. Today, we will focus on the same vicinity. Just below the chicken house (12) there is a little drainage ditch which goes through a twelve-inch culvert under the road. We had been losing some chickens to some feral culprit, the most likely guess being a skunk.

One evening while my mother's Aunt Bessie and her family were visiting us, there arose a clamor in the hen house. Dad said I should get the .25-20 down and take care of the situation. So mother's cousin, Phil, and I headed up the hill to the scene of the supposed carnage. Not that it makes any difference to the story, but though he was my mother's first cousin, Phil was a year younger than I.

Anyway, as we arrived at the henhouse, there ran from beneath it a critter. It headed down the hill and dived into the culvert. It was a skunk. I lay down in the ditch and shined the light into the tunnel. Placing the barrel of the rifle in the culvert, I pulled the trigger. It was a direct hit: in fact, it would have been impossible to miss. We got a length of bob warr from the shed, stuck it in the pipe, twisted it into the carcass, which we retrieved. The wound in the side was big as my hand (remember we are talking twelve-year old kid here).


This resolved the chicken-theft problem. Fifty years later, Phil was visiting me in Indiana and said, "Do you remember the night you shot the skunk?" Well, yes; but I probably hadn't thought of it in many decades.