Oops.

You know the adage "learn from your mistakes." Well, it seems I'm hell-bent on learning. I've got a list a mile long of things I've learned since we moved to The Funny Farm.

Some examples?
-Never mow the pasture with a riding mower. Unseen rocks will do serious damage to the mowing deck.
-Weed-eating in shorts is a bad idea.
-Weed-eating a patch of poison-ivy while wearing shorts is a very, very, very bad idea.

I could go on.

Recently, I ran across a quote that made me chuckle: "Let's make better mistakes tomorrow." Yes. At this point, I can only hope that, aside from the lesson learned, my mistakes will at least provide some entertainment and not be of the kind that result in missing limbs or the death of a favorite pet.

Thankfully, my latest mistake falls into the entertainment category.

Yesterday, after dropping the kids off at school, I mixed up the calves' bottles, and headed out to feed them. As I was passing the corner of the back deck, some movement caught my eye. A glance revealed a young skunk scrounging in the dirt beneath the unused rabbit hutch. I did an about face and returned to the trailer for the gun. Not only are skunks a threat to the chickens and their eggs, but around here, they are notorious for carrying rabies.

We really need to get a new critter gun. The one we are using is a semi-automatic that had been the subject of a recall. If it doesn't jam, the chances are it might shoot off multiple rounds with one pull of the trigger, and that can be very dangerous, so we have abandoned the clip and load one bullet at a time.

I returned to the back yard with the loaded gun, and saw that the skunk had not been scared off by my presence, so I took careful aim through the touchy scope and fired. It was a direct hit. The skunk writhed, appeared to attempt a somersault, and got stuck upside-down on its shoulders, tail and rear-end folded over the top of it's front-end and head. Surprisingly, there was no release of foul odor.

For a second, I contemplated putting a few more bullets in it, when I noticed a chorus of chickens clucking away in the coop. To be honest, they didn't really sound as if they were in a panic, but I just wanted to make sure there were no other skunks lurking around. I strolled over to the coop, peeked in and saw... nothing but a handful of chickens bragging about the eggs they had just laid.

I walked back over toward the hutch to see if the skunk was dead. But it wasn't. It was gone. I looked frantically around and finally caught sight of it- just as it was disappearing under the trailer. Cuss.

Crawling under the trailer is not my idea of a good time, especially if there is a hurt and frightened skunk under there. In fact, just poking my head into the damp darkness to see if a skunk is under there is not something I would consider enjoyable either. So I did what any sane person would do. I waited, in hopes that the skunk would die in a convenient spot under there, rigor mortis would set in (a dead skunk won't release it's stink if you wait to move it until after it is stiff), and then I (or preferably Chris, ha ha) could easily pull it out and dispose of it.

A few hours later, I opened up a panel of the trailer's skirt and carefully poked my head into the darkness. A scan with the flashlight, no skunk. I moved to another spot. Still no sign of skunk. There wasn't even a hint of smell. The only place I could see that might possibly be a harboring a dead or dying skunk was a section of drain tile that had been inconveniently stored underneath the trailer. I wasn't about to crawl under there to check. So I guess either the skunk wandered out another hole of the trailer and disappeared into the woods, or is still under the trailer. If it starts smelling like rotting corpse around here in a few days, then maybe I'll risk the crawl under the trailer. Or pay one of the kids to do it.

Lesson learned?
-Never, ever assume one bullet will kill a skunk.