Andrea was asleep, as I was up late irrigating the lawn and field. I finished up about midnight. As I walked along the ditch bank back towards the house, I was startled to see two glowing eyes reflecting light from my head lamp. "Oh," I thought, it's just a cat. But I soon realized it was not just a cat. This is what I saw:
That's right. Standing about 5 feet away on the grass below the ditch bank where I stood was a skunk, a polecat, a Mephitis mephitis. And he was mad. His tail was up in the air and he hissed angrily, ready to dispense his unique brand of stinky vengeance.
I froze. "What do I do?" I thought. As my life flashed before my eyes, I contemplated turning and running, or jumping in the ditch, or yelling at it to scare it off, but in my mind each alternative seemed equally likely to end up in me sleeping outside for the next month. So I just froze, eyes locked on the business end of this hissing nightmare.
Miraculously, a few seconds later the skunk lowered his guard and hightailed it across the yard into the darkness. My heart still pounded as I finished closing the head gates and went in to go to bed.
I'm grateful we live where we do, away from the city (really away from what most people would actually consider any sort of a real city) and a stone's throw from nature. But I'm also very grateful to have dodged nature's bullet last night.