Saturday, March 1, 2008

Baby skunk.

Well, living on the country can be very interesting sometimes. One night when I woke up around 2 or 3 AM and came out into the kitchen there was a baby skunk walking around, smelling the walls, familiarizing herself with the kitchen, finding her way around. She had already been checking out the cat's food bowls and seemed very familiar with the area. She saw me but was completely unbothered by my startled presence. I thought at first it was an opossum. It was somewhat dark, only the night light was on.

We used to have a huge opossum visit in the middle of the night in Santa Barbara. As freaky as they are with their black button eyes I was more afraid of the skunk, thinking she would spray in the house for any reason. I was real scared that I might startle her. (Yeah, I think it's a her.) I backed out slowly, thinking she would then go back out the door, but no, she went and laid down behind the toilet bowl, seemingly planning to go to sleep there. Well, since we only have one bathroom in this guest house we are currently staying in, I had to get her out somehow. I laid out a trail of cat treats from the bath room rug out through the kitchen door. Then I went and sat down waiting to see if she would follow the trail and go out the door.



I connected with her telepathically and she was completely unfamiliar with that but she did say she didn't want to go back out because the cat was out there. So I went out and found the cat on the patio furniture and brought her in to my bedroom. Then I went and said telepathically to baby skunk that the cat was now in my room. The little skunk walked right out the door, followed the trail of cat treats but didn't eat any of it, just walked out the door.

Some time later, one evening as I was watching television, I heard scratching on the kitchen door. I figured it was the skunk trying to get to the cat food again so I banged hard on the inside of the door, thinking that would scare her off but she just kept scratching. I opened the door so that she could see that I was there and maybe that would discourage her and she would go away, I opened the door just an inch and a tiny little nose came in through he crack of the door and a pushing from the other side. She wanted in, no fear in her what so ever, TV noise and humans and all. Then regularly after that, determined scratching on the door in the evenings.

I happen to have a seriously animal loving house mate who was so concerned with the baby skunk that he started feeding her outside. This turned out to be a bad idea since she now has more or less adopted us as her beloved family. This skunk is so tiny, like a bunny rabbit, and mostly white with really long fur. We found out on the web that skunks are very unafraid and calm. Yep, that's her. We also saw that she was seriously hurt, probably by some bird of pray that she had gotten away from. She had a huge open wound on the side of her face, at least an inch in diameter. Since we are not going to catch her or touch her I began sending her Reiki long distance treatments which have helped her tremendously. She has healed a whole lot and gotten her energy back and has taken to us even more.

We feel such love for this tiny creature and I feel her love for us as well. My house mate really wants her for his pet but the land lord and land lady aren't too amused at that idea, of course. One day when we came back from the store, having left the doors open for the cat as usual, we came home and I found baby skunk in my bedroom next to the cat's food bowls which I had moved in there. Aye, we tried a whole bunch of things to get her to go outside again, she was sitting right by the French doors leading to the drive way, but she instead went and laid down behind the bed, intent on staying. Again, placing a trail of morsels of fried chicken from where she was and leading out the door hoping she was hungry. She ate the chicken but stayed in the room. My house mate had to go in there and get behind her and carefully usher her out. Then we had all the carpets steam cleaned. She smells like a horse. And we are now forced to keep all doors without screens closed at all times and summer and warmth is coming.

Baby skunk, which we call Squirrel sometimes for some reason, has taken up nest in the pampas grass next to the house. She sits outside our front door and waits for us, walks through the yard and lays on the cool concrete of the patio of our land lord's, lays flat on the ground with her snout pressed up against the screen door and hangs out with the cat whenever she's out too. Neither seems to be bothered by the other. I try to get her to move on, to find new grounds with better feed and perhaps other skunks to live with but she sticks around. It probably doesn't help that we love her to pieces. Miraculously finding one can love, really love, such a creature too. We're developing a really passionate divine love for this critter. She has never sprayed us or our place or our cat but did catch the landlord's very curious dog George the other day.



This is some of our story with baby skunk so far. We won't be staying here forever so I continue to encourage her to find her way from here, to be a wild animal but so far we share in this sublime love together. Maybe soon she'll go on her way.

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There is a lot of wild life here. It's good for the soul. Herons, egrets, hawks, hummingbirds, cardinals, ravens, crickets, scorpions, mountain lions, crayfish, frogs - bull frogs and tiny cricket frogs, badgers, skunks, mice, ants, spiders, gophers, wild cats, coyotes, owls and so on . . .

Today a heron was walking calmly and very deliberately across our huge drive way, seemingly interested in the skunk's sleeping place. Do herons eat skunk? Don't think so.