Animal Stories

[UncleTim]

Got a little scare this morning. I went out to fetch the paper for my still sleeping wife. I opened the door, took a step outside and about fell over backwards.

The smell of skunk was immediate and obvious. This skunk was nearby too! This was overpowering. I looked over to the trailer sitting in the driveway, (waiting for me to get going) and noticed all the windows were wide open. I think my eyes got big as silver dollars for a moment.

It took me a few minutes before I was sure there was no skunk about to spray me, and then I made my way over to the door. Fed it the combination and opened the door and went inside, cautiously.

No skunk inside but the smell had made it's way in. I closed it up and went back inside to wait for the paper. MaxxFan blowing in at a slight rate.

An hour later the smell had largely dissipated, so I went in the trailer again to see what she smelled like. She smells mostly like glues and adhesives that are still venting off VOC's. (I assume on that one.) So no lasting skunk smell and the trailer continues to vent off gases in a dry, high plains desert environment, at the base of a great mountain range.

Just a bit of a fright and a heightened sense of awareness of those fury little creatures. God bless them all, even the next ones.

Note: My neighbor came back from climbing a series of fourteeners (fourteen thousand foot tall peaks), only to find marmots had been all through car, his motor and chassis and ate all his electrical wiring and thru the clutch cable. He couldn't even turn it on. The clutch was pressed all the way in. Insurance totaled his truck and it had to be towed out of the San Juan mountains to the tune of $1,500 for the towing bill. I happened to be traveling thru that area that same week and stopped in to see it myself.

Last one: Boulder has one of the highest densities of mountain lions in the country. Right now there are images of families of lions walking down bike paths and jumping fences into backyards. You can Google it and see them.

In the Summer months, when the air is quite still, we will sleep with the windows open. A few times each year we are awakened from our sleep by the sounds of a small mammal fighting for it's life and the we hear an end-of-life scream, and all is then totally silent again. Lions establish a kill box behind the house from time to time. This can happen twice a night for a while and then the lion moves on. It will make you sit up in bed as you wake up!

Get your attention every time. Around here, you open the outside door cautiously!

[cpaharley2008]

one way to eliminate the skunk, let the lions roam..... I know bats have a bad connotation but boy do they take care of mosquitos and other flying insects. It's nature's way, let it be.

[UncleTim]

Agreed!


Here's one! My daughter was suppose to be home about ten minutes ago. We were in a hurry to go and I knew she should be home by now, so I called her.

She said, "Dad, I'm in the driveway but there is a big bear on the porch".

I went to the door and verified what she said.

We waited.

[MyronL]

RE: “My neighbor came back from climbing a series of fourteeners (fourteen thousand foot tall peaks), only to find marmots had been all through car, his motor and chassis and ate all his electrical wiring and thru the clutch cable. He couldn't even turn it on.… Insurance totaled his truck and it had to be towed out of the San Juan mountains to the tune of $1,500 for the towing bill.”

That skunk story is great but the marmot one really got my attention. I was past Silverton on the Animas Forks Road around Eureka once, when I saw this little fellow alongside the road. Those teeth! The threat to wiring is a clear and obviously present danger. Now when there I will never, never leave my truck unwatched.

[UncleTim]

Originally Posted by MyronL

RE:That skunk story is great but the marmot one really got my attention. I was past Silverton on the Animas Forks Road around Eureka once, when I saw this little fellow alongside the road. Those teeth! The threat to wiring is a clear and obviously present danger. Now when there I will never, never leave my truck unwatched.

There are stories of people buying giant kevlar bags and driving their cars into them, wrapping them up and going off hiking. Some people use fences to keep them out. When they are present, all the locals know about it. They came out of the woodwork telling him after that one.

[MyronL]

Now you've got me wondering what I can do to discourage a marmot attack. Giant bags or fences? Wonder if spraying fox urine under the hood would do it.

[sherminator]

Skunk is preferable to rotting fish guts.

I went out bottom fishing one nice, sunny Saturday in July, brought my catch home, and cleaned it there. I put about 15 lbs of fish guts in the trash can for Monday pickup. Left for camping trip on Sunday - and forgot to take the trash can to the curb. Got home Thursday to the horrendous smell of hot, decomposing fish guts, even though they were double bagged and inside a closed can.
During our putting away of camping gear, we heard some scratching from downstairs. We had a baby skunk trapped in a basement window well. This was not the first time this has happened, so we knew what to do - unscrew a deck board so we could access the window well, and fashion a ladder from a length of 1x4 with some cleats across it for the skunk to climb out. The skunk was not too happy to have a ladder placed in the window well with him, and showed his displeasure in the usual way. I didn't get sprayed directly, but the smell persisted in the area for the rest of the day. The smell in the back was preferable to the smell from the garbage can in the front - especially as time went on. Monday trash pick up couldn't come fast enough.

[Greg A]

We have sounders of Javelina (Wild Pigs) that are nocturnal. Run into them frequently when out on our walks. I’ve taken them on a few times, but they are very aggressive and charge you. They stink pretty bad as well. Makes for an interesting evening walk in the neighborhood.

[arniesea]

A couple of years ago before I got smart and trimmed the branches back from our giant cedar tree, we had a pair of raccoons take up residence in the tree. They would drop down to the carport roof right under our bedroom window to mate. The noise was awful! Then a couple of months later the carport became a playpen. I tried motion lights, electric fencing around the base of the tree, noise, to no avail.

Finally I trimmed all the branches back from the house side of the tree far enough that they couldn’t access them from the carport roof. That effort took two tries. The first time I didn’t trim them back far enough and an adult would crawl out on a branch to weigh it down so the youngsters could reach it. Ended up taking a step ladder on the roof and trimming everything up to eight feet or so.

Those Raccoons are smart little buggers!

[ColoradoSwany]

Originally Posted by UncleTim

Note: My neighbor came back from climbing a series of fourteeners (fourteen thousand foot tall peaks), only to find marmots had been all through car, his motor and chassis and ate all his electrical wiring and thru the clutch cable. He couldn't even turn it on. The clutch was pressed all the way in. Insurance totaled his truck and it had to be towed out of the San Juan mountains to the tune of $1,500 for the towing bill. I happened to be traveling thru that area that same week and stopped in to see it myself.!

Tim, What brand was your neighbor’s truck? I read a few days ago that some manufacturers, notably Toyota, use a soy based wire outer casing and critters seem to love it. Scary, since our tug is a Highlander.

[UncleTim]

It was a tasty Toyota 4Runner. Yum yum!

[gbaglo]

By Tsukasa Azuma Last updated Sep 17, 2019 0

Since the year 2000, almost all car manufacturers started using the soy-based wiring insulation. Prior to that, oil and petroleum-based insulations were in use. The approach was followed for an environmental-friendly driving that comes with soy-based insulations. So, in the present era if you ask “which cars do not have soy-based wiring,” then there is no one. However, there are cars from well-known brands that are particularly known for their soy-based wiring.

[UncleTim]

I just checked. 1996.

[ColoradoSwany]

Originally Posted by UncleTim

It was a tasty Toyota 4Runner. Yum yum!

Oh boy...

[Iowa Dave]

#1 1/2 coil spring baited with an old loom. He will be right there when you check on him. Montana Three S. Walker Hound , not fed regularly. There: three solutions.
Iowa Dave

[UncleTim]

Somewhere around 1978 I was a junior at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. Being very poor I had to hitchhike back and forth to school. In mid Fall I was on my way back to school and I had just passed Logansport on Hwy 25. Being a landscape architecture student, I was required to have and use an art background, so my signs were always in 3D and very nice.

A guy in a yellow pickup gave me a ride at Logansport. Very nice guy and we had a great conversation about the deer that were migrating to Fall feeding grounds and how we had to be careful.

Right then, the lady driving in front of us, slowed way down to the point that I mentioned it. The driver whipped around the slow moving car only to have her speed way up and keep us from passing her. We were both going about 55 miles an hour. My driver slowed down and pulled in back of her again, only to have her slam on the brakes and almost come to a complete stop.

I was riding shotgun because that was the only seat in the pickup. It had an aftermarket air conditioner between us which took up the entire floor.

Just as she slammed on the brakes her car abruptly turned about 15 degrees so I could see a deer hit the front passenger headlight of her car and launch straight up in the air! I've never seen anything like it. Everything went into slow motion.

I watched the deer shoot straight up in the air about 25 feet and the deer was contorting so badly as it shot up, that I started to get sick watching it. Everything was in slow motion and the driver did not see what I saw. He was cursing at the lady and started to drive again. She took off and we never saw her again.

Just then I started to watch the trajectory of the flying deer and our path. It was just like judging a fly ball as an outfielder and I knew right away, we were going to hit that deer as it came down. No time to talk at all.

I frantically looked for a place to hide, nothing doing. The air conditioner took up all the room and there is no back seat in those old pickups. I put my arms up in front of my face and waited for a micro second and then all of the sudden a huge crash and I caught the deer in my chest at highway speed. It hit the windshield and collapsed the laminated glass to the dashboard. I got some glass in my forehead and down my arms. I think there is still some in there.

The driver then started shouting WTF. The roof was caved in where the deer hit it and snapped off it's back two legs. Crushing in the cab saved my life as I took the full shot of that deer in my chest.

Just then the deer started to mutter, it's lips flapping as it made it's noises and shook it's head. It's front paws started to try and run away from me as it sat on my lap. I was wearing shorts. I gave it once chance as I opened the door but it could not get out. So I bolted. I was out of the cab and looking back as the deer drug it's hindquarters out of the cab and to the barb wire fence. It was awful.

I was shaking bad! A kid came up and asked me if I had a knife cause he would cut it's throat and I started to panic. Too much violence for me. Everyone on the road stopped but the lady who hit the deer. Another lady in a house on the hill brought out a wet beach towel for me and I began to clean up the blood running down my face. That was so kind of her. I was totally shaking when my driver grabbed the laminated winldshield with his bare hands., ripped it out, threw it in the back of the truck and looked at me and said. "Well, are you ready to go?".

I looked at that kid next to me in disbelief, as I climbed back into the now crushed yellow cab. Off we went. Glass shards were flying everywhere as we rolled up the windows. We had no windshield.

All at once I see a county sheriff car speeding by us on it's way to our crash site. Next I see an ambulance speeding there to PICK ME UP! THAT WAS FOR ME! I was shouting that when they went by.

We came to a little town called Delphi and he told me he had to turn off here, so I got out at a gas station. I thanked him. I walked about ten steps and right into the waiting stare of a county deputy. He pointed at me and my beautiful sign and said "come over here".

I told him the whole story and asked if I was in trouble. He asked me if I was hitchhiking and I said yes. He then said "na, you're not in any trouble". I asked him if he would watch my stuff as I went into the bathroom to clean up and he did.

When I came out he was talking to a nice family with a very beautiful daughter in the back seat on their way to Purdue. They saw my sign. They asked the officer what happened. He told them. He said I was a very nice boy and so they offered me a ride to my apartment. I talked to their daughter the whole way home and began my recovery. True story!

[MyronL]

Uh-huh.

[Oldtimer]

Originally Posted by MyronL

Uh-huh.

Yer master summons you

[UncleTim]

If I was going to make up a story, I don't think I would make that one up.

[cpaharley2008]

So who harvested the deer?