My Backyard Zoo

Yesterday when I came home and walked into my side yard to set up a sprinkler, I was surprised to find that right in the middle of the shady side of my lawn was a sitting duck. There is no water around to attract ducks, and it is very dry everywhere, with only fractions of measurable rain having fallen in over a month. (Today it rained hard--for about 30 seconds). Maybe the duck had received notice of how often I sprinkle my lawn and was hoping to enjoy a cool shower. I didn't have time to document this rare duck appearance with a photo and when I returned home later the duck had left her spot and was waddling over to the other side of the house. I looked for a duck egg. Nothing. Why would that bird-brained creature just sit there as I approached if she was not on a nest or something?

Tonight after dark, as I was once again (what else) moving the sprinkler, I spotted an unfamiliar object in the grass. I thought it might be a small tree branch that had fallen but then I spotted a streak of white. Instinct warned me to retreat quickly! I went inside and grabbed our big red flashlight off the kitchen counter and returned to the side yard to confirm my suspicion--a skunk. I flashed the light up and down and he slithered away calmly into my neighbor's yard. It apparently takes a bit more of a confrontation than I provided for a skunk to waste his weaponry.

A skunk can spray up to ten feet and I am lucky I was watching where I walked--I was fast approaching the stink bomb zone. The odor of the skunk spray has been described as a combination of rotten eggs, garlic and burnt rubber. My putrefied egg solids with garlic enhancements that I spray around the garden beds is not much of a deterrent, I suspect, since it would smell much like the stink that the skunk is used to! Perhaps he smelled traces of Liquid Fence in my yard and was looking around for a little romance...

 (Remember the tongue twister, "the stump thunk the skunk stunk but the skunk thunk the stump stunk?"-- I haven't attempted that one in decades.)

This afternoon I had a ($100) eye exam and found out why my vision has not been optimum of late. My right eye has reversed itself with age and my prescription is too strong. Just before my late-night-sprinkler-skunk incident I had removed my new trial multi-focal contacts and had the old blurry glasses on. I'm lucky I didn't walk right into that skunk in the dark! And I'm glad I will soon see better, with my updated prescriptions--tri-focal glasses, multi-focal contacts and prescription sunglasses (I blew my budget)--but I think I will also keep the flashlight handy. Animals seem to be attracted to my yard lately and I want to avoid any such close encounters, especially of the smelliest kind.

I'm thinking my backyard is becoming a bit zooey--a real, Words with friends word!

 I am a city girl. I left the country farm with all its animals long ago.

 I do not like this. Not one little bit.