Thursday, March 21, 2019

The Scent Of Spring Is In The Air



The nearly white visitor on the wart; Deb Marshall art
 
Yesterday was the Spring Equinox. There was a beautiful bright full moon, and there are several signs that Spring is actually on its way, despite my on-going war with nursery companies determined to follow USDA wacky-tabacky-inspired rezoning guidelines to ship fruit trees and asparagus crowns vs. my assertion that I still have many feet of snow in my yard and will continue to have snow until sometime in late April. But, there’s a moist spring-like quality to the air;  the Buddha’s head and shoulders are now out of the deep snow; I can see the very top of the smaller compost bins  and the old compost bin, which have been invisible since December; I can see all the cement-block walls of the raised beds closest the house, and most of the snow has melted from the pea-stone path that lies between those beds and the south wall of the house.


As far as Catmandoo is concerned, the most important sign is that the melting-and-freezing that’s gone on during the last week means that the snow cover is now topped by crusty snow that will bear his not-inconsiderable weight, so he can patrol beyond the kitchen and back warts, finally. We looked out the window earlier this week and saw him perched atop the pile in the middle of the old compost bin, apparently peering intently at his feet. Most likely, there was mousie activity below the snow under his feet.


But from my point of view, one of the surest signs that Spring is coming is: Skunks!

Skunks hibernate and usually come out of their deep sleep sometime in February to mate. You can tell they’re out by the faint scent of them floating in the evening air. Once they’re out, they don’t go back to bed, as bears will if it’s too cold and there’s nothing to eat. 


The skunks were a little late this year, because of the cold and huge heaps of snow, no doubt – I didn’t detect the first one until last week. They usually spend a lot of their evening hours scratching up the compost bins, but there’s too much snow for that to be very profitable this season. As I was heading to bed one night, I noticed that the light on the kitchen wart was on – one of us must have turned it on and forgotten to turn it off. But when I checked, the switches were off.


So, I wondered, it must be the motion-sensitive light that’s kicked on. I wonder what caused that? I wonder if…there’s a BEAR on the wart? Wouldn’t be the first time I misjudged feeding the birds.


I peered out, carefully, from the kitchen door window and didn’t see anything – no moving darkness. I put the light on – still nothing. Yet, the motion-sensor light was full on. Hmmpf. I cautiously opened the inside door to get a better look. Still nothing. Maybe I’ll carefully step outside and see if there’s a bear out in the driveway?


Just as I started to open the storm door, I saw it – a waddling, wide, flat expanse of white with a little black snoot and feet, three feet from the door, snuffling up fallen birdseed and nuts just like a vacuum cleaner. It paid no attention to me. I shut the door, and then the inside door, quickly and quietly. Then I hoofed it to the other end of the house. And considered that it was only about an hour or so since I’d arrived home at 10 pm (I work late) and merrily bounced up the stairs and across the deck without looking first. That won’t happen again; I’m now singing the Here I Come skunk-warning song between garage and kitchen door, and keeping my fingers crossed that there’s no skunk investigating the trash can in the garage when I pull in!


Next day, a patient told me she was taking her daily walk down the road that runs by her house, and noticed that someone had dumped one of those recycled-woven-plastic shopping bags, and it had blown or slid half-way down the very steep  bank on one side of the road. She regularly picks up uncompostable trash people toss from their cars, and this particular bag appeared to be in great shape and potentially useful, so in spite of the steep hill coated in ice and snow, she made a long, shallow trek towards it, and grabbed it by a bottom corner, and tugged to free it from the icy crust.


Oh no, she thought, it’s heavy – it’s probably got something gross in it, like dirty diapers. So she gingerly pulled it up to see what would slide out.


As she pulled, the bag seemed to come alive. It sighed, turned ‘round and ‘round, and settled down again, flicking some lovely skunk fur briefly out the opening. My patient backed up very, very carefully, and said she heard a little snoring sound coming from the bag as she retreated.


I told those two stories to a friend, and she added her own: one night she and her husband had heard a scratching noise either against the wall or the window of their bedroom. There was a bush just outside that room, and she assumed that branches were rubbing against the house. Next day, they went out to see what needed to be cut back. They soon discovered that the scratching noises were actually coming from the gutter drainpipe that ran down that corner of the house. So the husband got a hack saw and carefully cut the drainpipe, expecting that a bird had somehow gotten in and couldn’t get out.
Friend and husband checking out what was trapped in the downspout; Deb Marshall art



From the top of the cut pipe, two black paws and a black snoot with bright eyes and a lovely white stripe on its head peered out. The skunk – maybe a baby, maybe not, they didn’t wait around to see what size critter fully emerged – had decided to explore the pipe, and once in, was too big to turn around to get out again!


My first hound dog was a huge boy: Beauregard Barnaby Pissbark was 110 pounds, tall, with a massive chest. It took him a few moments to get going, but once he did, he could run forever. He was great friends with Squeaker, one of the cats we had then, and enjoyed Puddy, too, and pretty much loved all kitties. His favorite way to greet them was to bound up behind, tuck his snoot under their back ends, and lift them up hind-end first into the air.


Somehow, I never learned not to let him out loose at night to pee. Never. More than once; more than twice; let’s not count – I’d let Beau out, and off he’d go towards the compost bins where a beautiful, unknown black-and-white kitty was digging into the bin. He was there in a few bounds, before the kitty realized it and could back out. His snoot between its back legs and under its belly, he’d lift and the kitty headed skyward. Then the “kitty” would slide off, spraying – but each time it was so surprised it never sprayed fast enough to get him in the face, but only on his massive chest. Pleased as could be with his new friend, Beau would then bound back to the house and whack the door handle to let me know he was ready to come in, and in he’d come, eager for his treat – and shake shake shake shake skunk stink all over the kitchen. And the two of us would spend the next hour or so, in the dark, in the cold, on the kitchen wart, having a couple of baths in “Skunk Be Gone.”

Beauregard Barnaby Pissbark greeting a "kitty"; Deb Marshall art


A friend from the Dark Ages when I worked in the computer publishing industry and he was a techie who wrote for us, had a wife who was completely in love with cats but totally, horribly allergic to them. So they had a bunch of cats that lived in their barn, complete with kitty beds and toys, and my friend fed them out in the yard in sight of the kitchen window, where he often sat at the kitchen table reading or writing. He fed them a couple of times a day, and mentally kept track to make sure all the cats had eaten a meal.


One night, after dark, he looked up from his book and saw that there was a lone cat out by the food dishes  and realized that the food he’d put out several hours before was surely gone. So he took a fresh can out and filled the bowl, thinking about the technical puzzle he’d been working on, and idly reached down and stroked the cat as it was gobbling up cat food.


After a few strokes, it occurred to him that this cat’s fur felt unusually thick, so he snapped out of his reverie and looked closely to see which one it was. As you’ve guessed, it was a skunk; he gave it one last pat and walked slowly away, wondering how many times he’d fed that particular kitty without noticing.


Breathe deep: the smell of Spring is in the air!




1 comment:

  1. I once saw a skunk at about noon crossing the street in Melrose, MA in broad daylight and with a fair amount of traffic on that street. Thought it was quite odd.

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