Just Skunky

For those of you who don't know our family personally, let me start off by saying that Kirk is a true man at heart. He has totally subscribed to that whole hunter-gatherer mentality, and testosterone seeps from his every pore. If he didn't have a tiniest inkling of a sweet streak, I swear, he'd be dragging me around by my hair and looking for fire. He is all man. He knows everything there is to know about car parts and mechanic-ing, can fix anything that goes wrong with your house, can build furniture like a master carpenter, loves all kinds of sports and gets insanely loud and obnoxious about them, and he thinks the only kind of cooking a man should do must either involve an outdoor grill or some type of wild game. But the thing that Kirk loves to do the most (besides spending time with his amazing wife and precious children!) has to be hunting. He sleeps, eats, and breathes hunting. He obtained a lifetime hunting/fishing license some time back so that there would never be a time that he couldn't go shoot something if he wanted to! Because of this passion, we have accumulated quite a collection of guns. He's doing much better now, but about a year or so ago, it seemed like he was always coming home with some new weapon. (Now before you freak out...yes, we teach our children gun safety, and all the guns are properly locked away.)

So, saying all of this, it wasn't much of a shock for me to see Kirk head down the hall Saturday night with a gun in hand. What jolted me out of my chair and caused me to bolt across the room,however, was what I saw when I turned around. There....on the back deck....just ten or twelve feet from where I was sitting at the table were two nasty, nasty creatures....Papa and Mama Skunk.

Now, there was a sliding glass door separating the skunks and me, but my chief concern at that moment was them being spooked and thus spraying their lovely aroma all over my house...and my dog and cat (who were also on the deck, but were sleeping through the whole incident).

The skunks were in the dog food, having a late night snack. They would greedily munch for awhile and then they would saunter over to the water dish, take a drink, and then stroll back over to the doggie dish. Mrs. Skunk even left us a nice gift on the step into Kirk's shop....must have eaten too much Purina.

Kirk's manly protect-the-homestead instinct kicked in, and he was out of the house with his gun in no time. By this time the boys were highly interested in the activity outside and were being annoyingly loud about the happenings. I kept shushing them; so afraid that one high-pitched squeal would send the skunks over the stinky edge.

We waited and we waited. The skunks kept eating and eating. I knew Kirk couldn't take a shot unless they got off the deck, but he sure wasn't about to go scare them off. It seemed like hours, but finally the skunks began to mosey towards the edge of the deck. I saw them slip off the side and waited for the gunshot. Nothing. Ten minutes later, Kirk comes storming in the front door.

It was too dark. The skunks sneakily slid off into the shadows, instead of into the slivers of light that were coming from the house. Kirk watched their black bodies slither up underneath our shed. I asked why he didn't just shoot, since he always hits his mark. He told me that he wasn't shooting at random, since there was a chance he'd hit them in the stinker. Good move.

So after listening to him fume over having missed the skunks, we went on with the evening.

Aside from the smell of skunk around the house on Sunday, we didn't think much about the little critters. But, Sunday evening, when we got home from church, the smell of skunk was definitely elevated. We went straight to the back door and peered out. Sure enough...Papa Skunk was back having a snack. Mama wasn't anywhere around, but we figured she must be close.

Kirk went directly to get his gun and made his way to his sniper position. It only took about 5 minutes this time for the StinkPot to make his way off the deck. BOOM! The boys and I heard it and knew Kirk had got him. I looked out the door and, sure enough, a little ball of black and white fur was sprawled out on the grass.

Although he didn't hit the stinker-spot, that sucker reeked. So, after very carefully shoveling up the little guy and disposing of him, Kirk came in smelling like something fierce. So gross. I sent him straight to the shower, but he was still pretty smelly. I can't imagine what it would be like if he had gotten sprayed. Yuck. I'm shuddering right now just remembering the stench.

Kirk was fast promoted from "cool hero dude" to "awesome cool hero dude" around our house. The boys were thrilled at their daddy's skunk hunting, and I was thrilled to have one of the boogers down. Just one more to go.....we're hoping Mama will pack up and leave since Papa isn't around anymore.

Please don't call PETA or anybody else who would care that Kirk killed a skunk...please. And so sorry if your family doesn't do things like our family tends to.....didn't mean to offend you. What would have been offensive to me though would be being sprayed by that skunk!