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!

Yee Haw!

Do you need something to make you smile? I do.

Winter Driving in the Country

It's been snowing a bit lately. That's fine with me because I love the snow...as long as it doesn't land on the roads. Unfortunately, I have no control over that. And even if I did, the wind would play its own little game and create some unsafe roads anyway.

We do have a good strong wind around here. It's part of living in this part of the state. That's fine, too, because I love the wind. I just don't like the wind blowing the shingles off the roof. That's not wind, that's trouble!

Anyway, when the wind blows the snow onto the roads around here, we end up with some pretty impressive drifts. I was headed to "town" today and had to navigate several drifts. I chose to drive around them since I was driving a minivan, not a truck. But there were some instances where I didn't have much choice and it was then I wasn't sure if it really was a minivan I was driving, or just a light-weight snow plow. I did get snow pretty high up into the air in some places. If I wasn't worried about flipping the van, I might have attacked some of the bigger drifts! (I guess there is some recklessness in me somewhere.)

I was driving on one particular road that was only bordered by wide open, dormant farm fields. With the wind blowing the snow across most of the road's surface and bright blue sky above me, it felt like I was driving in heaven! But snow drifts are bumpy and though I couldn't really see them under the wispy snow in motion, I sure could feel them as we bumped along the way. So much for my heaven analogy; I'm pretty sure heaven is a little easier on the axles.

Cow advice

For any of you thinking of getting some cows in the near future (maybe you think they'd be good weed control or a nice pet or you're just not thinking clearly), I have one very important message.

Get them de-horned.

No, there haven't been any injuries around here. And for that, I'm very grateful. Of course, a lot of that may have something to do with the fact that I told the kids to stay away from the cows. (Three of four of them have horns.)

The problem is actually that cows are very curious creatures and they use those horns to explore and get into trouble. We used to have a rabbit hutch. We used to have some bales of straw which were actually behind a rigid wire fence panel, held in place by a 10 foot long post, 6-8 inches in diameter. We used to have an electrical plug on the trailer (although that has more to do with the cows' teeth than their horns). We used to have a sound corral.

This morning, I got to chase the two biggest trouble makers out of a cow-forbidden area. They had moved the 16 foot gate over and sauntered right in. I was just hoping I could send them back through the 2 1/2 foot space they had come in through, without getting rammed or stomped on. Mission: complete.

Darn those horns! They are quite the shovels, picks, crowbars, pitch forks, spears, battling rams, medieval torture tools!

Interestingly, you'd never think of cows as having individual personalities since you usually just see a whole herd of them. If you thought that, you'd be wrong.

MOO!

It's time for the running of the bulls...Eastern Idaho style. Every spring a local farmer runs his herd down our road, headed for the mountains and cool, lush grazing. Every fall he brings them back so he doesn't have to go so far with his load of hay.



It's spring (according to the calendar), so here is the cattle drive. It runs right past our house. It's kind of exciting. And it gets the dog really excited. (Joseph, too!)

Living in the country, Tip #1

If you must mop the floor while the farmer is outside tending to the animals in the snow, make sure you don't put the mop and bucket away before he comes back inside. It's a sure bet you'll need it again. (If said farmer doesn't live in your house, you'll probably be fine whatever you decide.)

I'm sure there are other tips that should have come before this one, but it's the one most forward in my thoughts right now.

The FREEZE is coming!

So I went out and picked all the tomatoes, peppers (wasn't sure if the freeze would hurt the peppers, but since I was out there...)and one last cantaloupe. This is what I got off of 3 tomato plants. It's mostly from 2 plants since one never really thrived. I still have to go out there and clean off 2 BIG cherry tomato plants. I think this will be the year I learn how to can salsa.

It's kind of ironic that 2 1/2 plants gave us so many tomatoes when 2 years ago, Chad planted 25 plants (not a typo) and we didn't get nearly this many tomatoes. The country must have a magical effect on us. I still have to pick the pumpkins and butternut squash, but they aren't a big rush. We have a lot of corn stalks to decorate with, too!

I just wish there was a way to keep these tomatoes fresh all winter so that I could keep on enjoying my tomato sandwiches for lunch. Speak of lunch...not sure where we're going to eat today since the table is full of the garden.

Skunk Bait

That's what I had for lunch today. Did you know that skunks really like corn? They really like carrots, too, it seems. When we were feeding the animals last night I made a quick check of the garden and collected some ripening tomatoes. I pulled two ears of corn from the stalks.

Our corn isn't doing very well. We had some strong wind knock a bunch of it over a day after a heavy watering. Now half of it is being supported by the other half, and neither half is thriving with those conditions. So one of the ears was pretty light on the kernels. The other one was pretty good so I shucked it and brought it inside (and had it for lunch today). Daniel had picked an ear of his own, but after throwing it around the yard for several minutes it was badly battered. With the two bad ears of corn, I reset the skunk trap.

Now, there is currently a skunk sitting in our trap awaiting his sentence. I'm beginning to lose track. I think this is the 4th or 5th skunk we've caught in the trap. That makes the 5th or 6th skunk to be buried in the pasture this year. I can only imagine the surprise a skunk is bound to make when it (or another burrowing animal) runs into one of these burial sites. We also have a cat out there somewhere!

Except for the skunk we drowned last week, all other skunks have been shot. The trap was beginning to suffer from the shooting, and the skunk would always end up stinking, so we tried drowning. That skunk still managed to stink a bit. Oh well. Winter is coming = less skunks. Gotta love that fresh country air!