This Stinks!

This morning when I was getting ready for work, Mac comes in.

"Hi."

This was not a "hi-honey-how're-you-doing" Hi, this was a "Let's-get-down-to-serious-business" Hi.

"What's up?" I ask.

"What is the worse thing we could have caught in the trap?"

After the loss of our chickens, Mac has been setting the live catch trap every night. So far we have only caught one of our chickens (John Jacob), during the day while they were out in the pasture. The trap is mostly for raccoons, so I knew a cougar wouldn't fit. I tried to think of the next most ferocious thing.

"A coyote?" I query.

"No, I would've loved to catch a coyote."

"A weasel?" We had just watched The Big Lebowski and the weasel in the tub scene flashed through my mind.

Mac said he'd have no problems with the weasel/possum genre. This was worse.

"Well, I am pretty sure you didn't catch a rattlesnake." I said, inserting my own mortal fear animal.

"Nope... There's a skunk in the trap."

Oh. My. God. I looked out the window and indeed, there was a mephitis mephitis pacing in the wire cage. Now I understood Mac's dread. The problem with a live trap is that the animal is completely unharmed by the trap. So we've got one extremely pissed off skunk in a two foot box ... a recipe for disaster! Now, just how do we get out of this predicament and end up smelling like a rose (or at least not like skunk)??

Follow up: Mac called in the professionals. They are coming to take care of the critter tonight. I am not sure what that means exactly for Mr. Mephitis. $75 to take care of this mess. I thought that sounded kind of high since we had already taken care of the trapping part, but Mac would have paid double to have somebody else take care of this, especially since our neighbor's advice was: Throw a tarp over the cage, pick it up and drop the whole thing into the livestock tank until it has drowned.