skunks

Thursday night I heard some rustling outside the bushes of our bedroom. At first I thought it was a cat, but then realized that the amount of noise out there wast too much for just one cat. Next I heard scratching noises on the fence. (You see, we had 4 panels of our fence fall down. Well, Thursday afternoon I decided to fix them and put them back up. Apparently I blocked their walkway!) When I went out the to the kitchen to look out the slider and see what was going on, I saw 5 black tails walking along the fence. They went to their hole under the shed, then went back along the fence to a spot where they could fit under and were gone.

I have been suspecting that we have skunks under the shed for about a year now. Last summer as Ben and I were sitting down to a later dinner, a skunk walked right by the slider. And from the looks of things the other night, we now have babies too! I decided to watch for them again last night. I saw one larger skunk go under the fence, then come back and go under the shed. I alerted Ben and he came to watch. Just then another big one came around the side of the house, saw us and turned back around the other way. We didn't see the babies last night. Either they stayed in because of the wind, or me turning the light on scared the mom and she kept them in. Now we have to decide if we should try to get rid of them!