The Scent of a............

SKUNK!

Yes!  That is a skunk.  Yes!  It is in Poppa's trap.  Yes!  It is at Aunt Peggy's house.  Last fall, before we left for Florida, there was a distinct aroma of Eau-de-Skunk around her place.  By the time we returned in the spring it seemed to have cleared up and we thought little more about it.  In the early fall this year, we noticed that something had been digging its way underneath her sunroom.  Poppa decided to set his trap - on the assumption that it was a groundhog - since they had been caught in the area a few years ago.  He set the trap with fresh vegetables - no luck - no takers.  I reminded him of the Eau-de-Skunk last year, looked on the internet to find suitable bait for polecats (aka skunks) and re-baited the trap with peanut butter on a little scrap of bread.  Bingo!  A skunk.  Kev-Inn kindly agreed to give Poppa some assistance and they drove the skunk out into the country and released him - needless to say at quite some distance from Aunt Peggy's and our house.  In the hopes that would be the end of the story, but on the chance that there would be further chapters, Poppa reset the trap.  Sure enough, he caught four more skunks - whew!  That made a total of five skunks - and the cute, fluffy fellow you see in the picture is number six.

Number six is getting a blog, because he is soooo special.  After five successful traps and releases, with skunks varying in size from small to extra-large, without incident, we were not anticipating much excitement from this medium-size specimen.  Poppa sneaked up behind his blanket, and just as he was carefully placing it over the cage, he started complaining about the stink............sure enough this miserable little wretch had released some musk out into the atmosphere....and our olfactory glands were definitely offended.  We took the boards away and placed the smelly-blanket encased trap into the back of Poppa's precious truck.  After we had driven just a mile or so we could start to smell the  nasty critter inside the truck - then realized that it was Poppa's jacket which he had removed and placed in the back seat.  By now Poppa's eyes were watering - yes, it was that bad.  We drove out to our usual release spot.........

.........where Poppa gingerly opened the trap door....

....and before long the malodorous little beast waddled into the wilderness........

....enabling Poppa to remove the blanket and place it into a plastic garbage bag for disposal - it will never be used by us again!  He then replaced the stinky trap into the back of his favourite mobile piece of equipment, but not before throwing his jacket into the truck-bed and folding back his tonneau cover in the hopes of airing out the space back there while we drove back to Aunt Peggy's to make her supper.  Our entire universe reeked of skunk.  Poppa called Great-Gramma and told her he wouldn't be over to her place for his usual visit.  I made Aunt Peggy's supper and we hurried home for a change of clothes and a shower!  Poppa's old jacket was placed in the garbage - luckily he had just bought a new one last week!  Then he went back into town and got our supper at KFC (twooney tuesday night).  As I type this he is out spraying his truck with a mixture of peroxide, baking soda and dish soap...........we have reset the trap.