Category: wildlife

It’s a Black & White Problem

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I know it’s been awhile. I haven’t traveled nearly as much as I used to the past couple years, so travel stories haven’t been as abundant.

However, I’ve realized even when life isn’t in the clouds, my Life On The Ledge still has things to share. Although the characters are different, the entertainment value is still strong.
So back by popular demand (or no demand at all) the all new view from my Life on the Ledge!

This story starts in the black of night.

Right before I’m headed off to bed, my trusty four footed companions decide to do their excited dance at the door. I figure the chances are about 90/10 that the dance is due to some uninvited visitor in the yard vs upset tummies that were going to wake me up in the middle of the night with the need to use the bathroom. I hesitate for a minute, but decide that despite the low odds, I really did not want to be woken up in the middle of the night, so I opened the door and let them out.

As soon as the door opened and they took off around the garage, I knew I played the wrong odds.

Sure enough, their run was soon accompanied by their “Oh, look! A new friend!” bark.

I gave it a minute or two, then called for them to come back in. Not only did they not appear, but I recognized their “Hey look! We want to show you what we found!” barks, so I grabbed my flashlight and decided to go look so we could all go to bed.

I came around the garage and the flashlight found the pups hanging out in front of the chicken coop.

Followed quickly by lighting the black and white fluffy friend running around inside the chicken run.

Luckily, when I gave a quick yell to the pups, they came running back to the house with me, and I decided our little skunk friend could show himself out.

Apparently, Pavi’s experience last year getting sprayed in the mouth by a skunk (Yes. Directly. In. The. Mouth) was enough for him to learn to leave the black and white kitties alone and he had avoided the spray.

Ember, however, had not had the chance to learn that lesson.

She seemed to only have gotten a glancing blow on her neck, though, which I quickly scrubbed with dish soap and vinegar before it could set in, and the smell remained quite mild, considering.

Bullet dodged.

So off to bed we go to a great night sleep.

Bright and early the next morning, we’re downstairs and ready to start the day.

Somehow, even before my coffee, my brain kicks in enough for me to think maybe I should just go double check that our guest had made his way back to his own home over night before I let the dogs out.

I was really glad I did, because sure enough, as the chicken coop comes into view, there is our Oreo colored friend, still running back and forth in the run.

Hmm. Why did he choose to stick around? Surely there are more exciting places to explore than my chicken run.

The chickens had dug a hole in the corner of the run, which I had covered with chicken wire to keep them from escaping, and I realize Oreo had pushed up under the wire from the outside to get in. But now that he was in, he was standing on the wire, so couldn’t burrow back under it to get out , so now he was trapped.

Which means now I have to get close enough to the coop to let him out.

My run has two sections to it, a larger one and a smaller one. Both sections have doors in them, and since Oreo is currently running back and forth in the smaller section, I decide my best bet is to open the door in the larger section.

So I very slowly make my way towards the door, keeping my eye on Oreo the whole way.

At first, he is too focused on his panicked pacing to notice me, but just as I get into range to touch the door, he stops and looks at me.

So I stop and look at him.

I figure as long as I’m seeing the two-eyed side of him, I’m safe. It’s the one-eyed side I need to avoid.

So I keep my eyes on him and slowly reach out and open the door.

Once I get it open, I quickly retreat around the corner of the barn, and watch from a safe distance.

But Oreo has just resumed his frantic pacing along the back stretch and seems unaware his path to freedom is behind him.

That’s fine. I’ll go inside, get some breakfast and coffee, and surely he’ll be gone by the time I’m done.

Except he isn’t.

I load the dogs into the car for our morning walk and go to check, and Oreo is still doing his military march on the back of the chicken run.

Now what?

I decide maybe I need to open the door that is closer to his pacing path.

And also about 3 ft from Oreo’s business end.

I find one of Pavi’s strategically placed, enormous sticks lying between me and the coop (Now I realize he wasn’t creating a mowing obstacle course, but a home defense system!), so I grab it and again slowly advance into the danger zone.

I use the stick to flip the latches on the door, but I can’t get the right angle to pull the door open with it, so I have no choice but to creep in and pull the door open.

But I make it! And now Oreo has a clear escape path just 3 ft behind him.

I take the dogs for our walk, and when we get back an hour later, this time I’m sure Oreo has moved on.

And yet again, I’m wrong.

Not only is Oreo still pacing the perimeter, one of the chickens, who had still been shut up in the inside coop, had somehow let herself out, and was now pacing around with our black and white friend.

2 doors standing wide open to the outside world, and both of them are just getting their steps in the cage.

Obviously time to regroup.

Oreo is now in the larger run area, but also under the inside coop. As far from the doors as it is possible to get. The chicken is hanging out by the open door, so I figure I need to shut the doors and figure out how to corral Matilda before I can continue trying to encourage Oreo to move on.

I decide if I can try to corral Matilda in the smaller area I might be able to grab her and remove her from the equation, so I go get some grain and throw it down in that area to lure her in.

Sure enough, she takes the bait.

But as soon as I open the little door to try to nab her, she squawks and runs the other way.

Straight at Oreo. And straight into his smelly shower.

Somehow, I still avoid becoming collateral damage, but now Matilda is not happy and squawking and flapping, and Oreo is even more agitated.

Perfect conditions to continue with Plan Rescue.

Matilda finally calms down enough to go back to the grain and I’m able to grab her.

So now I’m standing hugging a skunk stink chicken.

Somewhere along my quest of collecting useless trivia, I had remembered hearing that once a skunk sprays, they are unable to spray again until their supplies replenish, so I had googled that earlier in the morning to see if I might be able to use that to my advantage, knowing he had sprayed the dogs last night.

While it is true, they can actually spray 5-6 times before they deplete their supply.

So I do debate, for a minute, whether I should just throw the chicken at Oreo 4 more times to run him dry, but quickly decide I’m unlikely to come out of that plan unscathed.

I stuff Matilda back in the coop through the nest boxes and reach in and lock the door so none of the other girls get the bright idea of trying to join the party.

Then I swing the outside doors wide open again.

Meanwhile, Oreo continues his frantic marching.

Now what?

I grab what is left of my blackberries from the fridge and again venture back to the danger zone. I toss a handful of berries back towards Oreo and then strew the rest of them to the door and out.

There. Plan Hansel and Gretel is sure to work.

I head inside to give Oreo the room he needs.

An hour or so later, I again make my way out to the chicken coop. Only to see Oreo still running back and forth.

Really??

I had already tried a stick to attempt to prod Oreo towards the exit, but it wasn’t very effective through the wire of the run.

Which is how I find myself doing something I never thought I would be doing .

Throwing rocks at a skunk.

Oreo is still pacing as far away from the door as possible, so I start throwing rocks at the coop near Oreo to get him to move in the other direction.

And it works! Oreo runs to the other end of the run- right past the two open doors (and over all the blackberries) and resumes pacing on the other end.

Old Oreo is proving to be a formidable opponent.

Apparently Oreo is only going to go out the same way he came in.

Except now Oreo is pacing directly over the entry point.

So now I’m throwing rocks again to get Oreo back to the other end he just came from.

Once he is safely back at the far end- again- I move in, tug the wire out from the bottom of the run, prop up the corner with a piece of wood, and move in for the final volley.

Back to the other end of the run to throw rocks-again- to move Oreo back to his chance at freedom.

Finally!

Oreo gets back to open corner, slips back out under the coop, and disappears under the fence.

And I survived 3 hours of battle with a skunk without getting sprayed once.

Victory!

Hopefully chickens don’t have a strong sense of smell, because their coop was not so lucky.

The Big Bad Wolf and the Scary Woods

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I have two big dogs. And while I didn’t get them for protection, and they are both friendly to dogs and man, I always figured they’d be good to have on my side if ever we were to run into Big Scary Monsters.

Today I learned how true that is.

It’s been cold here this weekend, so we haven’t been venturing out for as many daily miles as normal. In fact, it was a balmy 2 degrees when we woke up this morning, so we decided to postpone our morning walk a little and hope for a little more red to appear on the thermometer.

By the time we ventured out around 10, it had warmed up 6 times over to a much more reasonable 12 degrees. And since it was also nice and sunny, it felt like at least 13.

We had done a nice vigorous hike through the woods to get our body temp up, and Pavi had rearranged the forest by moving a few trees from here to there to keep his blood pumping, and were heading back to the car.

We had come out of the woods and were crossing the field to the parking lot, when Pavi, my big, intimidating, 95 pound black Shepherd, suddenly stops dead and stares intently into the woods.

Then the hackles all the way down his back go up and he starts barking at whatever he is staring at.

I walk up next to him and prepare myself for an enormous porcupine, or coyote, or wooly mammoth or BigFoot himself to charge out at us.

But nothing happens.

After a few more seconds pass with no monster emerging from the woods, I start to relax.

But my furry 4 footed companion has not.

And now he’s added a little lunge forward/ leap back move to his armor.

This helps me pinpoint the Big Scary Monster.

Someone had rolled a big ball of snow, like the bottom of a snowman, through the field and left it beside the trail.

And this Monster Snowball had set off all the alarms and sent my ultra tough protector into DefCon 5 mode.

It wasn’t until I went and sat on the snowball and finally lured my watchdog in with treats, so he could neutralize the threat, that we could finally continue down the trail and back to our car.

I don’t know what will happen if we ever do encounter Big Foot, but at least I know I am safe from snowballs.

The Death of Muskrat

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I know being stuck at home with quarantine and social distancing can start to feel old and mundane. But I am here to share a story that shows even home can be an exciting place to be.

It started Thursday night when I happened to notice some animal had been hit by a car across the street from the end of my driveway. I did a double take, hoping it wasn’t someone’s cat or small dog, and once I determined it was only a muskrat, I didn’t give it much thought, assuming the road crew, or whomever was in charge of disposing of road kill would be along eventually to do their thing.

Last evening, the dogs and I went out in the yard for our nightly game of ball, when Ember suddenly perked up and took off toward the end of the driveway. I turned to see a crow take off at the same time, and caught up to Ember just as both she and I realized the birds had picked up the muskrat and decided to use the end of my yard as their dining table for their dinner.

I grabbed Ember just as she grabbed hold of a piece of Muskrat’s innards that apparently seemed too appealing to leave.

And I was left with no choice but to yank them out of her mouth and throw them back to the birds.

Needless to say, the rest of the evening was spent with her visiting every window, trying to convince me to let her out to finish her dessert, and me trying to recover from the forced, and way too up close encounter with dead things, and trying to decide if I could make do without that contaminated hand for the rest of my life.

That would have been bad enough, but of course the story doesn’t end there.

This morning, I get up, hopeful that the crows and turkey vultures, have finished their dinner, and cleaned the remains from the dining table that is my lawn.

But of course they haven’t, and Muskrat lay right where he was left.

And now it’s Saturday, so even if I wanted to call the town office and ask how to get in touch with the roadkill crew, there is no way to do this until Monday.

So I am forced to take matters into my own hands, and find myself out on my lawn with a shovel and a Hefty bag, cleaning up Muskrat’s remains. I decide I have little choice but to make my first trip to the dump in my new home town.

Not only is this my first trip to the dump, but also my first experience dealing with road kill, so I really have no idea what proper protocol is, and as I pull in, I stop at the attendant station to explain the situation and figure out where I’m supposed to take poor Muskrat.

“I don’t think we take road kill here” is the response I get.

“Well, what am I supposed to do with it then?”

” You can talk to the boss. That’s him right over there”

I walk over to The Boss, and again explain the situation.

And again get “We don’t take roadkill here” as the response.

And again I ask “What am I supposed to do with it then?”

“You can bury it”

“Where?”

“Just in your yard”

Planning a Muskrat funeral was not exactly top of my to-do list for the day. And starting an animal graveyard in my yard is not a very appealing option. I’m tempted to ask why, if my yard is an acceptable burial site, the dump is not, but I refrain.

” I can’t bury it in my yard. I have dogs”

“Yeah, if you have dogs, they’ll dig it up.”

I blink at him.

“You could just throw it across to the other side of the road” he replies with a shrug.

I give him the head tilt and more blinks, because I’m truly at a loss as how to reply to that.

I turn to walk back to my car to figure out a plan B, and as I pass the attendant shack, the lady I first spoke to, asked what The Boss had said to do. I told her he was not very helpful, and I was still unsure how I was supposed to dispose of Muskrat.

“Just take it to the woods and dump it. That’s what the cops would do if you called them. I hit a baby deer once and that’s all they did. Let the other animals take care of it”

I don’t know what else to say but to thank her and get back in my car.

I’ve watched enough mob movies to know that a car driving into the woods and tossing a Hefty bag out of the back, or digging a grave to bury a bundle is never viewed as suspicious activity. But that seems to be the only option I am left with.

Had I known how quickly my life would devolve into the seedy underbelly today, I would have had more coffee this morning.

And this is how I find myself driving deep into the woods and disposing of Muskrat in an unmarked grave, wondering again how I landed in the role of clean-up in the death of Muskrat, and if “the dump people made me do it” will hold up under future questioning.

RIP poor Muskrat. RIP.

Goldilocks & Papa Bear

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While things have been a little quiet on the travel front this summer, tonight I have a story for you, thanks again to my dog Auni.

As any of my followers know, Auni suffered from a broken leg this past winter, and already has arthritis in her front leg. So as part of her “therapy” to keep her as active as possible, we go on almost daily walks.

Tonight, we headed out for our constitutional after dinner, and after the thunderstorms decided to clear out, around 7pm.

We were having a nice leisurely walk, stopping to sniff anything that might be suspicious, and exploring everything that might have changed since our walk two days ago, when I happened to catch a glimpse of something moving out of the corner of my eye.

We have a creek that runs parallel to the road in our neighborhood, and most of the driveways have little bridges going over the creek to get up to their houses.

Taking his evening constitutional and heading across one of these little bridges in our direction was our neighborhood Black Bear.

When I saw him, we were about 10 feet from running smack dab into him at the end of the driveway.

Luckily, since he was looking in the other direction, and ambling even slower than my canine companion, we were able to quickly back up about another 10 feet and come to a stop before he got to the end of the driveway and the road we were on.

And it gave me a few seconds to get my camera.

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I actually never carry my phone with me on our walks, but I happened to be waiting for a return call (on a package delivery issue, of course) and so had brought it with me tonight. However, my photography skills were a little lacking after this one picture when I realized he was looking right at us. I figured I should maybe pay more attention to what he was going to do, then take pictures.

And what did my faithful companion do? The same companion who literally turned into a wild woman 3 nights ago, when this guy was clearly outside our house around 10pm? That night she was pacing back and forth across the house, barking at every door and trying desperately to make me let her out to face her foe head on. (There were a few moments when I wondered why I wasn’t doing just that). But tonight, when she actually did confront her foe head on?

She sat calmly by my feet and watched him with me from our spot on the side of the road.

Which is probably a good thing in hindsight.

Our fellow ambler spent a few seconds in the above pose checking us out, and then turned and loped off across the street and into the yard on the other side, and we turned and continued our walk back to our house.

It’s always nice to make new friends in the neighborhood.