Turned To Stone

Yesterday evening after work, I went out to the barn to check on the residents. I tucked the hens and roosters in bed, plumped up the horses' hay stash, and picked crusted eye goo off the goat. (More on all the residents in later postings)

Two brown hens are currently living in the front tack room for medical reasons, and share quarters with Mrs. Parker. (More on them later, too) It's a small room, made smaller by the defunct chest freezer in which I store feed, the bin that holds 4 hay bales, several wall-mounted cabinets, and a staircase that goes up to the hay loft.

The two hens hang out on a bed of loose hay under the stairs, and I have to stoop over and squish under so I can move each hen over, gather up any soiled hay (I wear disposable gloves), and pitch it out behind me. And so it was last night, except I decided to stand up with the gob of poopy hay in my hand and pitch it into the corner by the hay bin.

That's when I saw it.

Just three paces away, against the opposite wall, was a skunk. It wasn't black with a white stripe, but my brain screamed "SKUNK!" so. I. stopped. moving. I turned to stone. Unfortunately, my arm was still up in the air, cocked to throw the gob of poopy hay right where the skunk was standing, and I was petrified it would drop to the ground and startle my little guest.

Because that would be a bad thing.

We eyeballed each other for several long moments, and it appeared to debate its options while I freely admired the creature's cream-colored, shaggy locks and long, feathery tail. Then, in awful slow motion, I lost sight of its eyes as it turned around...

...and scampered out the tack room door and around the corner, deeper into the barn. This was good for me at the moment, but not the barn residents. See, skunks have a motto: "Don't care which came first, the chicken or the egg; they both taste great!"

Now, since I obviously didn't get a photo of my surprise visitor, I surfed the net and came up with a beautiful example, courtesy of Fertanish.com

See what I mean about the tail? Because I'd never seen anything like this before, I did a little research, and this variety of skunk is call "Hooded" as opposed to the "Striped" that we're all familiar with. According to the Internet Center for Wildlife Damage Management:

The hooded skunk (Mephitis macroura) is identified by hair on the neck that is spread out into a ruff. It is 28 inches (71 cm) long and weighs the same as the striped skunk. It has an extremely long tail, as long as the head and body combined. The back and tail may be all white, or nearly all black, with two white side stripes.

The hooded skunk [is] much less common than striped and spotted skunks. Hooded skunks are limited to southwestern New Mexico and western Texas.

Which is funny, because my barn is located in Ohio...