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Skunks and Crows
© By Abraham Lincoln
Our dog, Pepper Jax, went out at 6:15 AM the other morning.
After a few minutes I went back to the door to let him come back in. I
saw him nose-diving into the dew-covered grass and then rolling. He did
it repeatedly and I called my wife, Patty, to come and look.
We decided he must have been sprayed by a skunk but neither one of us
can smell so we didn’t or couldn’t smell anything. He came in the house
and leaped up on his recliner and pawed his blanket off on the floor
and jumped down and ran into the other room and repeated his pawing the
sheet covering that sofa.
Meanwhile I looked up on line for an answer as to what we should do if
a skunk sprayed the dog and found to use 1/3rd cup of white vinegar and
2/3rd cup of water and scrub the sprayed area. Later, use one-fourth
cup of hydrogen peroxide, one-fourth cup of Dawn dishwashing soap, and
one-fourth cup of baking soda and mix into one quart of warm water.
Wash only the affected area to avoid spreading the spray.
The dog smells great now and about all we can smell is the odor of
boiled white vinegar¬—reputed to be a good deodorizer for a whole
house. It must have worked because visitors have not commented on the
odor of skunk spray but did say they thought they could detect the
smell of vinegar.
I asked around and various people said Brookville has a lot of skunks
that live in and around town. We have seen them walking down the street
at night but never saw one in our backyard. We also saw a coyote once
as it trotted down Madrid, I suspect headed for the creek area.
I guess we are blessed because the environment has to be pretty good
and healthy for wild animals to come around. From raccoons and opossum
to rabbits and skunks we have seen them all here at one time or
another. We also have a 6-foot tall board fence that makes it more
difficult to just walk in, so the animals we do see have had to work at
it to get in the yard.
Then there are my favorite Coopers Hawks that have come here over the
years. I have more than five thousand photos of them in my backyard so
when one lands on the fence nowadays; I don’t bother to grab a camera
to take its picture. They really are wonderful birds.
I also have a flock of crows that I try to feed when I see them in the
area. They are the smartest birds and can figure out how to do
different things to get a piece of food.
One of them has a bad leg so it has to hop around on one leg and bend
over on the one leg to reach out and pick up a shelled peanut. I try to
make sure there are plenty of raw peanuts on the ground when it is in
the area.
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