Leslie and I spent the day and evening working inside the chicken houses. He was greasing fan motors and I was blowing down. (For those that aren't familiar with the term, just means I had a blower on the back of the tractor and was blowing cobwebs and dust from the ceilings, walls, vents, fans, heaters, etc.)
We had finished up the third house and it was already dark, making it rather hard to see inside the houses, even though we had all the lights on. Leslie had already raised the big door and I went on inside to start on house #4. I had gone on down to the end and turned around, making my way back up the other side. Leslie had been working ahead of me so he finished up and went on elsewhere. After a while I saw him pull up by the big door where he parked the truck and sat waiting for me to finish up.
Coming back down towards him I got about a third of the way down the house when all of a sudden I smelled an upset skunk! This was about the same time I saw a flash of light and heard the slam of a truck door...no sign of life out the door but the dome light was shining so knew that door slam had been from Leslie. I was thinking he had walked around out there in the dark and disturbed a wandering skunk. All of a sudden he flashes a light at me several times...ah! A warning! Just then I saw a small animal come bounding inside the door and head over towards the wall...okay. If he would just decide there was nothing to see there and go back the way he came we'd all get along just fine. Oh, no...not in his plans. He comes bounding towards me where I sat-spellbound-on the tractor wondering if he'd spray me as he passed or if I actually had time to jump down and head for a side door. All of a sudden he stops moving.. oh, that's good.. but he's not leaving. I figure I haven't much to lose so decide my best option is to make a sound loud enough to not startle him (who needs another whiff of that?!) but to make him leave. Trying to hit just the right level of noise to make him leave but not make him nervous I start clapping my hands...maybe that unfamiliar sound from the other end of the house would make him turn and head back outside. He stops moving and just stands there. I can barely see him but KNOW he's still in there! I add a verbal "Whoo!" a few times to the clapping. All of a sudden he whirls and takes off out the door! Yay! But wait.. Leslie's still out there.. but no, he's safe inside the truck. Hopefully, neither of us will have to deal with tomato juice or Dawn and apple cider vinegar or any of the other 'fixes' for skunk smell.
I start forward again and make my way down to the door and-since the skunk is nowhere in sight, I turn and make another round. I finally finish up and head out the door. Leslie has gone around to the control room to turn fans and lights off. When I see the lights go off I get off the tractor and shut the door.
I'm all about getting with Leslie to discuss our excitement of the night and hear his side of what happened. I start about the skunk only to be told that a possum had attacked the skunk outside two or three times before the skunk had had enough of it and sprayed the possum. I look at Leslie and ask, " Well, what was that that came into the house?"
That was the possum. What a LETDOWN! Here I was so excited that I had outsmarted a smelly skunk only to find that it was only a possum in there the whole time! Do I feel silly? Well....
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