Fun With Nature

Country Girl, on her blog, Hooterville Holler (which I will link, if I can ever figure out how), has an entry today about a run-in with a rattlesnake.

Her story reminded me of something that happened to my Ex and myself many years ago. We lived out in the Indiana Dunes, in an old cabin, with a dog and a cat. We had been there for several months when we discovered that we were feeding another cat. This one was HUGE, feral, and scary. It came in the house, terrorized both our animals, and refused to back down from anything! We decided that a little trip down the road, further around the curve of the lake was just the thing for the beast. In order to expedite this, we borrowed a live trap from a neighbour, and baited it with tuna fish. During the night, we heard the satisfying sound of the trap being sprung. Secure, we rolled over and went back to sleep, perchance to deal with the cat in the morning.

Morning came, and, armed with an old (and thick) comforter, we went outside to load the cat (trap and all) into the old Econoline and take it for a ride to its new hunting grounds. Much to our surprise, instead of the 20 lbs of spitting fury that we expected to find, there was something small and black and white curled up asleep in the trap. On closer investigation, it proved to be a skunk! We beat a hasty retreat to the house for breakfast and deep thought.

We called the lady who had lent us the trap, and asked her what she would do with a trapped skunk. Very unhelpfully, she said, "Shoot it!" Aside from moral considerations about killing a trapped animal, even such novices in nature as we were had a pretty good idea that there would be a violent emission of odour to go with the violent act.

Eventually, Ex came up with an idea. He dug out his longest fishing pole, put on the biggest hook he could find, and hooked the catch on the door of the trap. It was a very lucky cast--if he had been that lucky at catching fish...(that's a whole nother story). The trap tipped over, and we held our breath (literally)! He managed to open the door, and a slightly confused, but well-fed and non-aggressive skunk casually ambled out and strolled away up the dune.

Eventually, we trapped the cat by throwing the comforter over him while he was in the house, and he did go for his ride, but that was sort of anticlimactic!