Tuesday, July 5, 2011 :: More Skunk Adventures

Someday, when I'm dead and gone, I imagine my kids sitting around a table reminiscing, having a conversation something like this....

"Hey, do you remember that summer that flooded really bad, and we moved everything out of the downstairs including the stove and refrigerator so it was like camping in our house? And just down the road there were logs and fish floating across the highway? And the mosquitoes were like kamikaze soldiers so that every time you went outside, you ran for your life flailing your arms around like being attacked by killer bees, even in the middle of the day? And remember those 3 skunks that moved into our crawl space and that one that crawled BETWEEN THE SIDING AND THE INSIDE OF THE HOUSE, and the day that Dad shot 2 of them 4 feet from the sunroom and stunk up the house so we all thought we were going to pass out? Yeah, wow, that was quite the summer."

What? You don't ever remember a childhood summer like this at your house?? Me neither.

I am now praying that this list does not get any longer by the end of summer.

So yeah, the news of the day is that the 3 skunks came out of their cool home in our crawl space under our house to take a nap under our bushes in front of our sunroom.  FOUR FEET from our sunroom.

My kids were out on the front porch saying, "Wow, I've never been this close to a skunk before!" And I happened to think, "I wonder what other kids do on their summer vacations...."

Dustin had HAD ENOUGH of this skunk business, so decided smell or no smell, it was time to get the gun. He's pretty sure he got one, he thinks he may have even gotten two. The funny thing about shooting skunks under bushes where you can't see clearly is that when you know there's more than one, you really don't want to go check and see if you got one OR two, on the sheer chance that you only got one.

While he was shooting at these skunks...4 feet from our sunroom...I happened to look right in front of us at the house and saw a whispy white tail sticking out from BEHIND THE SIDING. As in, a skunk is now between the siding and the inside wall of the house, where the insulation is. This is 4 feet IN FRONT OF US. I pointed it out to Dustin, who is channeling Rambo at this point, he pointed the gun at the foundation and said, "I'm going to shoot it through the siding." Ok, does that sound off-your-rocker-crazy to everyone, or just me?

And here's the scenario that played out in my mind...Shoot the siding. Make hole in the siding. (Imagine explaining this to the insurance adjuster.) Injure skunk. Make skunk really mad. Skunk sprays. Skunk cannot get out because it is injured. Skunk eventually dies and starts to ROT in our wall. We move out.

(Sidenote: I am NEVER EVER going to complain about the occasional mouse in our wall again. EVER.)

I put the skids on the whole "I'm going to shoot the skunk through the siding" thing. (Never in my whole life did I dream I would type that last sentence.) And it seemed like there was nothing to do but just leave it there. So we did. And later when I checked on it, there was a whole pile of insulation from between the siding and the inside wall that had fallen out of there. Who knows how far that stupid thing is in my wall. Or if he can even get out.

Someone please come rescue me from this twilight zone I live in.

Some good news today--I got my STOVE AND REFRIGERATOR back today!! Hooray!! Except now I have to cook again. Boo.

Also in good news--here's the extent of the flooding in our yard:

This is actually the ditch in front of our house--the lowest part of our yard. You can see there's some water, but not a lot. Enough to make things squishy.

Some other photos from the day...
Here's a Kamikaze mosquito that is very representative of what we have here right now. (Sorry, my finger is not normally that red--white balance off on camera I guess.)

 Can you say WEST--NILE--VIRUS??

Here's that collapsed grain bin just across the levee to the west of us.

And we're starting to notice a lot of junk in the water across the levee--pieces of dock, boards, paint cans, gas jugs, tires, tanks, coolers, and lots and lots of logs. Some very large.

We're going to start moving some of the things from the trailer back into the house tomorrow. It appears that back-up water is not going to reach us to the magnitude we thought it might. Of course unless the Corps decides to up their release numbers. And with the Corps, you never know. 


We are not out of danger yet. We will live the rest of the summer knowing that if the Little Tarkio Creek levee were to break to the west or north of us, we could easily have 4 feet or more of water around our dike. So although we are trying to return to some form of sanity in our home, we will not be unpacking everything.

And one last bit of news--our flood insurance went into effect today! Yes, you know, the flood insurance that, 3 days after we bought it, FEMA said "didn't count" for anything caused by the Missouri flood of 2011. Yes, that flood insurance. Good thing I also have insurance from a Higher Authority who has promised that He will provide all of our needs. And that's a policy I know will never be revoked.