It has slowly been warming up here in the frozen Northeast. I haven't seen or smelled a skunk for months, until driving to work Wednesday morning; I smelled a skunk shortly after leaving my driveway. I remember wondering if the resident area skunk had gotten run over, it was so strong.
Thursday, I got ready to leave for work - loaded up my coffee, lunch and purse into the car, turned off the garage light, and started to lift the garage door. Looking out the window, I saw a small figure waddling off. At first I thought it must be an area cat; they sometimes hang around by the house. Then I realized it was the resident skunk. Why he (she?) was right at my garage door, I have no idea, but evidently there was some reason.
The skunk stopped before he even got to the path to the front door. Well, that wasn't going to do as that is about 10 feet from the garage door, and I need to not only back up, but get out of the car to close the garage door. I lowered the door back to the ground (it was only up a couple of inches), and lifted it partway again. That produced enough noise that the skunk continued, and took the path toward the front door.
Good enough for me, so I continued on with my mission. By the time I was backing out of the driveway and could see up the path to the door, the skunk had disappeared around the side of the house.
I want to thank the skunk for deciding to retreat instead of defend his position that morning!
Your gentle encouragement undoubtedly made the difference. Cooperation is the name of the game!
Posted by: Cop Car | March 15, 2015 at 10:17 AM
I am fortunate that the garage door has a point about 2" into the lift where it sticks. It won't go further until you lower it about 1.4", then raise it again. So, I have learned to be gentle while opening to begin with. Otherwise, if I had been whipping the door up, I'm sure the skunk would have been startled enough at the fast action to decide he didn't have time to waddle away.
Posted by: bogie | March 22, 2015 at 09:23 AM