Am I Smarter than a Skunk

When I arrived at the lake, Joaquim, who has been the keeper of the compost all winter, told me that here is a new problem with it. An animal is coming at night, opening the bottom door of the compost, taking out what it wants and tosses its own refuge around the yard. Joaquim reported that he knows that whom ever it is, doesn’t like corn husks and yellow onions for they have been tossed aside while other tasty morsels have been consumed. I took over the job, wondering what kind of animal we were working with, but knowing that I am smarter than a skunk, the animal I decided as I was fighting here, I placed three rocks in front of the compost sliding door and go to sleep for the night. In the morning, refuge all over the lawn again. The skunk has moved the rocks away and dug under the bin as well. “Are you sure it is a skunk,” someone asks. “I have heard possums are strong.” I change direction and call it a possum. And I put rocks around the compost – I put the rocks two high at the compost door, then empty more vegetable matter into the bins, water it down and wait for morning. The compost is spread all over the ground again, the rocks have been removed from the door and there is also a small hole dug on the other corner of the compost. I loose my cool. I get Kelvin’s father’s day gift from the garage – a mover. I take it down to the west of the house and begin to take apart my rock wall, now carrying rocks over that even I can’t lift and make a wall two rocks high around the compost. The next morning we change from calling the animal a possum, to calling it a racoon, since the rocks have been moved again. Laura DeThorne, Bonnie’s colleague, is here from Florida. She claims she is a farm girl and willing to help me with the mess. At first I decline, but then tell her yes, if you were raised on a farm you may have more skills than I do on this matter, since I am a city girl. She comes down to the compost, dressed for the job. She is dressed in an old jean skirt, a stained long-sleeved man’s shirt, oppy old straw hat, mired shoes. “You look just like my mother,” calls a voice over the banister, yelled out from the onlookers on the balcony.” Laura decides to take this as a compliment; though I am dubious thinking it may also be a taunt. Her 9 year old son, Nate, has an idea. A sleep over under the porch to catch the racoon in his act of compost thievery. We spend the afternoon bringing up the air mattress from the tents at the beach. We fill water balloons hoping one of us will be able to strike him when he strikes us at night. A bottle of ketchup is brought down, for someone thinks to squirt him with ketchup will send him running. By now Laura and I have built a free standing rock wall, 3 large stones high right around the compost. Fearing that our compost is so fortressed that the racoon won’t be able to get into it while we are sleeping we bring down some fresh compost buckets, deciding to leave them out on the ground but with the lids still on. “The racoons will know we are camped out if we have left one of the lids out to decoy them in.” So there is no entrapment in our act. As I am going to sleep and the dark has fallen, I hear one little voice ahead of me say, “Grandma, I am afraid.” “Fine. Hold my hand,” I said. “I am not afraid,” said Duncan, “but what if we are right in the same path that the racoon takes when he comes at night to get at the compost.” Trust me. When I hear the racoon approach I will wake you and you will get the first hit,” I replied. We finally settled down for the night. Not the best sleep I have ever had. I woke about every hour to cover someone else up. When morning broke we had outsmarted the racoon. The first night in seven nights that he had not made a hit. It took one rock wall, two adults and three 9 year olds sleeping on the back porch to lick the problem of compost spread all over the lawn in the mornings.