Pass me a gas mask!

Country living can be quite pleasant. I love it.

I don't love skunks. What are skunks good for, anyway? I'd like to know.

They aren't good for target practice. Read on.

A few nights ago, the dogs alerted us to a problem outside. We found it on the back porch, having a cat food dinner. It had sprayed at something and things were stinky. Later, we saw yellowish spots on the siding of the house. Nice.

We set some traps, but we only caught a bird. Leah liberated it.

Tonight, I heard the dogs at it again so I went to the back door. I'm very grateful our back door has a window! There was the problem again, having more cat food for dinner.

I found Chad (cutting cement board in the garage) and told him the skunk was back. He grabbed the rifle and went out the front door. I rattled the door enough to send the skunk down the deck steps which is where Chad shot it.

Oh, the stench! The smell of (skunk) death! I'm choking. Joseph and Sarah's room must be toxic. It's 77 degrees in the house and we've closed the windows. Now I'm melting, too.

And because of the smell (and the dark, since it was 10:45 PM), Chad decided to wait until morning to do anything about the skunk. So it's on the bottom step, soaking in a pool of blood. We really need to catch them in traps. It's less hazardous.

Lovely. Country living is not all roses and sunsets!

My life stinks!

Now before you refer me to your favorite therapist or sneak a sample from your cousin, Cynthia - the Pharmaceutical Rep., keep reading.

I smell dead things.

I also smell living things. I mostly smell stinky things. If there is a nasty odor, I usually know about it and am probably looking for the source if it's in my own house. (If it's in someone else's house, I suffer and feel slightly grossed out.) I've joked that it gets worse when I'm pregnant. I'm not sure about that. I think that I have been pregnant so much in the last 9 years that my nose no longer knows the difference.

The worst recurring smells in my house are the kitchen disposal (I try to peel all my oranges into the sink just to chop them up in the disposal. Did you know about the power of orange peels?), the garbage can -EWW!, and the diaper pail. Occasionally, I am assaulted by something yucky in the washer (a towel used to clean up milk spills or Rebekah's pants after she almost made it to the potty in time, etc).

I smell bad breath on others almost instantly. I've caught a hint of my own at times, but not too often. I don't know if that means that I don't have bad breath or if I just do recognize my own stink. I learned in High School to hold my breath when a person passed by my seat. That trick still comes in handy on airplanes.

So I've been enjoying a "new car" smell in our van since we got it about 6-7 weeks ago. And then about Monday I started smelling something bad. I thought it was a dirty diaper. I searched and searched, but couldn't find it. Every time I opened the doors, I'd smell it again and I was getting frustrated! Yesterday was do or die...I was going to find the source of the odor, even if I had to remove everything in the process. Luckily, I didn't have to go that far.

I had given all the kids an apple juice box after the fair on Saturday. We usually drink a third of Rebekah's drinks before we pass them to her. I should have given her even less. Rebekah had spilled?/poured? some apple juice into one of the cup holders by her seat. She may have poured some into the other one as well but I'm not sure. It had pretzel goldfish crackers in it and they were all puffed up and moist when I found them. They didn't smell like fermented apple juice, though. I think they were soaked in water. I also found both of Nathan's cup holders with about an inch water in them. So did a bit of cleaning and my new car smell is back. And so is my sanity!

Strange. I know.

Smelly

I hate yucky smells. Luckily, I have a very senstitive sniffer so I can discover bad smells right away...before they fester and make a bigger smelly mess (which is when Chad starts to wrinkle his nose).

This morning I was in the laundry room changing the laundry. I can smell a yucky smell in there! But I'm a little confused since there aren't any dirty clothes waiting to be washed. The washer had just finished, so it shouldn't be that. We do keep the snow gear in there, but it didn't seem like a musty-yucky smell. Nothing looks like it has spilled. But even if it did, I would expect it to be a cleaning liquid and smell clean! So now I have a mystery on my hands. And I really don't feel like deep cleaning the laundry room right now.

What I'm afraid of is that something died nearby during the winter and now that things are warming up, so is the dead thing. Ew! Gross!

Meanwhile, there are yucky smells in both bathrooms, the boys' room and the kitchen. I'm pretty sure some honest housework would take care of those issues. Unfortunately, I don't feel like deep cleaning any of those rooms either. This family sure is lucky to have me! I can ferret out the odors, but don't do anything about them!