Give the Drunk Skunk an Egg (and Other Sundry Tales From the Country)

I dislike squishing a bunch of stories into one blog post, but this is what happens when you fail to update your blog for several months.  Sure, I could schedule various individual blog posts to go out several days from each other, each with a crafted tale all its own, but the whole reason I haven't posted in forever is lack of time.  And for me to figure out exactly what order things happened in and recreate it as if it was happening all now is more brain power than I have at present.

How's the Earthship Inspired home?

The main update, and the point of this blog, is how and what are we doing to build our earthship inspired home.  

Jack.  We've done jack towards working on our earthship inspired home.  And that's ok because we didn't ask permission anyway and consent is important.*

I believe I have mentioned in previous entries that our goal upon moving into our for-now home is to get done the minimum we really needed to live here relatively happily for the next however long it takes us to build the home we really want.  The two big things for that were to 1. paint the brown interior color away and 2. build a fence so the dog can do his business on his own.

And therein lies the problem.  We certainly succeeded in ridding our abode of the ick brown I so detested, but it took a good long while.  We were still painting our first week+ living here.  The fence is mostly Chris's project.  It's not that he couldn't tell me what to do, and I'd try to do it.  But ...

1. He's handier with the necessary tools
2. He's stronger
3. I don't want to build a fence myself in much the same way that I don't want to birth a child myself
4. The fence costs a lot

We had a bit of a hold up on the fence project when Chris had this unfortunate event on his motorcycle.  (Fair warning, accident video.)  Incidentally, lane splitting is legal in CA.

The result of this (other than one totaled motorcycle) was a cracked radius and a beautifully banged up knee.  I mean, I found it beautiful in the that's sooo cool sense of me liking icky and cool body stuff.  So, Chris can't use the power-y tools so much until his wrist heals.  When's that going to be?  Well, the ortho had wanted to put him in a big ol' cast, get a CT scan, and possibly do surgery.  Chris, who'd spent a week in a temporary cast done unto him by urgent care and verily disliked the itching, refused the cast.  He has a brace and a CT scan scheduled for after the bone might be healed anyway.  So, we'll see.

But the point is, we haven't moved on from our original tasks making this home ultimately livable, in order to work on the real home goal.  So... wah-wah.

Wildlife Critters

In the meantime, I'm learning to like this home more and more with the passing time.  Chris was pretty happy right away, which is great.  It's taken me a mite longer, and that's alright.  

One of the things we both love about living here is the wildlife.  We haven't seen anything super remarkable yet, but we're enjoying what we have seen.  Here's where I warn you that I'm going to be posting some pictures that include creepy crawlies and if you don't like spiders, you might want to skip the rest of this post.

Do you know how cool owls are?  Of course you do.  I did too.  But then I got to live near them!  You can know something without having personal experience.  But when you get personal experience, your knowing changes, right?  

So, owl flight is supposed to be silent?  It seems like more than that.  It actually seems like there's a void or noise dampening field all around a flying owl.  And annoyingly, owls only fly in the dark so the best I can ever really see them is in the twilight when you can't really get a good view.  Harumph!

The owls we do see seem light in color, in fact we're pretty sure they're Barn Owls like the one in the video above.  I know that I'm really just hopeful about Hogwarts and wizardry in general (despite the author turning out to be a TERF), but the light color does make me want the owls to be kin to Hedwig.  I don't care if I'm in my 40s, I know Ravenclaw is waiting for me.

One issue with where we're living is the relative lack of good places to walk the dog.  We really had some good places in Albuquerque, including a somewhat accepting golf course, many foothill trails, and if all else failed, the neighborhood with a small park a block from us.  Our CA apartment had... the neighborhood, but also some human-made lakes that were close enough to frequent, and also a natural space that could be driven to easily with trails.  Here... you can't even walk on the street for fear of imminent squish-ment.  It's seriously like the most realistic game of frogger ever.  

Frogger Cross The Street GIFfrom Frogger GIFs

Every time we take out the garbage, we have to start with a little non-denominational prayer in case we don't make it.  (This is where I get snarky and maybe insulting about religion so feel free to skip it if you like.)

"O Universe of some influence; whose planet we came to inhabit by means we're only marginally sure of.  We ask for protection on this Tuesday of regularly scheduled garbage pick-up.  That our lives not be taken from us in such a menial task as crossing a country highway to put our garbage and recycling across the street where it is safer and more convenient for the garbage truck to collect it.  Surround us with your grace, and possibly kevlar-coated blow-up human hamster balls, that we may pass to and fro unsquashed by the massive trucks that frequent this passage.  

Universe of gasses, rock and plasma, hear our plea!  Although we are hardly worthy -having been part of the establishment that contributes to social discord, corruption, and global annihilation- we ask your mercy.  Grant that your rules of physics be our guide and support us in our trials and on our way.  Show us the way, free from conceit, in your expansive knowledge.  And let us say: RUN!"

The whole point before I got sidetracked was that there is one place that's not super far away where we can walk the dog on rough dirt tracks.  And here we have seen many cool bits of animal life.  One is this large ... bug.  We call it "Big Bug," which is similar to Big Bird except it's a bug, not a bird.  And black, not yellow.  Oh, and it doesn't talk like a 6 year old.

They're cooler than you think with the way they move

We've also seen some tarantulas (there will be a picture... fair warning) but we've also seen this bizarre insect that seems to have killed the tarantulas and is dragging them ... somewhere.

I'm telling you, we've got our own National Geographic show here

These wasp-like creatures are apparently Tarantula Hawks.  It's sad to see them dragging the large, grand spiders along in the same way it's sad when you see the fox kill the bunny on Planet Earth.  Ok, it's different, because bunnies are really cute... but similar.  But that's life and death.

We get to see plenty of bats too.  I like bats.  I'm not sure what kind is native here.  The one that looks like a pig gone miniature that ran into a wall?  The cute furry black ones?  All I can say is that every time we see one, I have to sing the Count's waltz, The Batty Bat.  And because Chris didn't grow up in the U.S. and every time I have to sing the refrain I think I must show him a video of it, and every time I forget; I have to post it here.

The Drunk Skunk

The dog has roundly rejected our hope that, through inviting people over frequently (which we have failed to do), he'd never learn to associate this home with a place he has to protect.  At least from the people we have over frequently (which we do not).  So he tells us whenever there is anything of minute interest to him outside. 

One night he decided to alert us to something of special interest.  Because I work from home and am party to this somewhat often, I wasn't very interested.  Chris went out to see what was going on and found the cutest skunk ever roving around the house.  

I love skunks.  I know, they make the terrible smell, but have you seen a cuter smelly animal?  It's at this juncture that I tell you how awkward and wrong I often am about things...  

When I was in phlebotomy school, I ordered a skunk badge holder for myself.  When I was in nursing school I tried to do everything the cheapest way possible and so went with the free crap they gave us, none of which gave me joy.  And nursing school is the antithesis of joy anyway so I was not going to make that mistake again.

So adorbs!  This Etsy artist has a ton of adorable animal art

My reasoning was that everyone has some kind of skunk story, and it's odd enough that it was likely to make people talk to me instead of sitting in terror of a needle I was going to stab them with.  And for kids I could distract them with it...

None of that really worked.  In my three weeks of clinicals, one person asked me about it.  And that person didn't have much of a skunk story.  To be fair, I'm pretty sure most skunk stories end the same way: with tomato juice.  But... not this one I'm about to tell you.

So, Chris and I are watching the super cute skunk butt and, because I love skunks and therefore have done some research on them in grade school where they often let you do things you find interesting, like learn about skunks, I am telling him that we don't have to worry overly about it spraying unless it starts stamping its paws at us and does a handstand.  We watch with a flashlight as the skunk scuttles around and...

Chris: Is that skunk alright?

Me: Wha... Oh... Well... 

Super cute skunk butt is dazedly and dizzily stumbling and dragging various paws and really looks quite drunk.  At first we thought it might have been hit by a vehicle.  There was some commotion on the road just then despite it being somewhat late.  Well, poor thing!

But you can't really help a wild animal that might or might not have been hit by a vehicle when it might skunk-i-nate you.  Were we going to bring it in the house for the night until a veterinarian was open the next day?  The next day was Sunday, where was the closest?  Would a vet actually look at a skunk?

So we did the next best thing we could think of.  We took a moving box that was laying outside the house (in the vain hope that someone will want to come all the way out here for free moving boxes so we don't have to break them down to put in the recycling to pray for safe passage across the highway the night before and after trash day), put it hastily back together and against a wall so it had a little shelter.  Then I went in and got an egg I'd hardboiled that day and cut it up.  I delivered that and a dish of water to the tiny shelter and got the heck out of the way. 

It was so sad and stumbly

Then we went back inside to a dog who was going out of his mind at not being included in the exciting skunk-venture, to finish our episode of Buffy.

Before we got far, some further discussion about the drunk skunk and a tingle made me Google the phrase and... looks like these are all signs of potential rabies infection.  Well, shit.

I looked up the number for animal control and called.  I'm mightily impressed that the county has a 24 hour emergency line.  I haven't had that benefit in the past.  I told them the sitch and they agreed to come out the 20 minutes from where they're stationed.  They asked us to go out and keep an eye on the skunkness in case it decided to go elsewhere. 

So, we sat on the driveway steps with a flashlight and a lantern and watch the skunky nom egg while it wavered back and forth.  We were quite sad to have the poor skunk probably killed, but I comforted myself by knowing it would have a good last meal.  

After an intermediate trip to the sheriff that apparently trumped our skunk issue, the animal control dude arrived.  He assessed skunky in about 43 seconds and said he thought the skunk had distemper and he was going to euthanize it.  He did this efficiently and with a very smart poofy comforter over the skunk to catch the spray.  He invited us to go inside if we didn't want to watch but I wanted to see that he was humane and it felt like someone should, Idk, be there for the skunk?  Even though it probably didn't know and we were fairly far back so as not to be in the way.

The Kittens

We have yet to see the two forms of wildlife I'd very much like on our property: roadrunners and possums.  But we have attained new indoor wildlife in the form of the immature feline.  Two of them, in fact.  When we were leaving our former apartment, our manager had four kittens that needed homes.  She had tremendous trouble finding people who followed through after saying they'd take a kitten.  So, although we were going to wait to get another cat, and although the original plan was... one kitten... we took two of the four.

But these pictures are at 7 weeks old

We met them at 3.5 weeks old

We had some of the usual baby animal issues: litter box training, adult cat grumpies, free feeding vs timed meals problems... But after six weeks with us nearly all the issues are worked out.

Those who have been following me on FB have seen many pictures.  But because my godmother, Amy-the-Awesome, bought us cat caves, I promised that I would cobble together a cute video of all the best cat cave clips.  Enjoy.

Thanks!

I'd also like to take a moment to thank everyone who found themselves able to lend some assistance over our move.  There's a lot of generosity out there from people sending monetary help, to loaning us tools, helping us complete tasks, spending time listening to my woes, someone even video walked me through installing a CGFI outlet!  So, thank you!  It means so much to me that, while we may live outside of a community with any neighbors, we're still part of a community of people across the globe who care.

*Just incase you're not up on the Generation X American English slang, here you go. Oh, and this too.  I take no responsibility for my poor choice in blog humor and blame it all on the migraine I've been treating for several days, although maybe it's been a week. Time is blurring together.