Skunk Meets Dog and A New Roof
Okay, so I'm one of those moms who plays Bunko once a month. I was called by a friend for the first time last fall to substitute. It was kind of fun, mostly just to get out by myself for a couple of hours in the evening. The point of the evening is just to hang out, chat, and relax. So anyway, last night was Bunko. We got started a little late because one of the ladies was running late, so I ended up not getting home until close to 9:30. Usually I'm at my computer working no later than 9 on Bunko nights. I have to say that 9:30 is not late for me, but I get my work done in the evenings, so this meant that my 2-3 hours worth of work was not going to get started until much later than normal.
I have to backtrack a little and say living in Northern Nevada during summer time poses some health risks. All the fires in California that are burning right now, well that smoke is headed our way. Usually you can see the mountains surrounding us on all sides, but lately those mountains are barely visible even though they are only a mile or so away. Our sun last evening was red. The moon was red too.
On my drive home as I turned the corner by our house, in addition to the smoke, I smelled skunk. My thought, "Ooh, someone hit a skunk." I pulled in and my husband met me at the door. He thought he smelled a weird smoke smell in the house. Walking in was horrible. The air was so acrid it actually burned my throat. It was a weird combination of the skunk smell from outside but mixed with what almost smelled like an electrical smell - which is never good especially in a 45 year old house with wiring done before there was an electrical code mandated. So I walked around with him looking for where the smell was concentrating. It seemed to be lingering in the hallway. We finally decided that it was the smell of the smoke from outside mixed with the skunk smell, and our hallway, we concluded, was the place where smells hang out. We don't have a/c, so we always open the house up at night to let in the cooler air, so we were letting in all the bad smells as well. After a while we decided to sniff the dog, and if you have never smelled a dog who has been sprayed by a skunk, count yourself lucky. Horrid.
We have a 9-year-old chocolate lab. Sweetest dog on the face of the earth, but hates water. I know, lab who hates water. She's an abomination to her breed. We aren't hunters, so until we moved back to Nevada and bought our current house, which is on almost an acre, we had never had a chance to witness her inborn (is that the right word?) nature of hunting. She used to chase things but never caught anything. Our house is bordered by open field on 2 sides, so we get lots of bunnies, various birds, scorpians, and other various desert life. We stopped encouraging her to "get the bunny" when one day she actually did. I felt guilty, but I honestly never thought she'd catch anything.
Okay, so back to the original story, she either chased a skunk or surprised one. She ended up sleeping in the garage. She had been sprayed and then came in and layed down on our carpet, which only perpetuated the lingering smell.
So after all this hoopla, I finally sat down to work at just about 10 pm. Got everything done by about 12:45 a.m. and went to bed.
I'm an 8-hour-a-night girl. I love the fact that I work at home and school at home. I rarely have anywhere to be before 10 a.m. and this is ideal for me. It ensures my sleep. I'm not a morning person either, so I get to have slow mornings.
Our house was built in 1964 and has the original roof, a cedar shake roof, if that means anything to anyone. And what with all the wildfires, 45-year-old cedar shingles are not what you want on your roof. I was told the roofers were going to be here around 7:30 this morning, but they were already walking around on the roof by 7:15 tearing off shingles. I probably could have slept through that, but my youngest, S- (age 2-1/2), heard them too and was banging on her door to come out.
So instead of having my leisuring morning with a cup of coffee in my hand, I got to wash a skunky dog in my bathtub (baking soda and vinegar work pretty well, but dogs aren't fond of the combination foaming and running around their mouth and eyes), and share my breakfast with S- because we only had 1 clean bowl in the house. (I don't like to share my bowl of cereal in the morning...it's part of the wake up routine!) Here's hoping the day gets a little less crazy. Luckily I don't think I have anywhere to go today.
I have to backtrack a little and say living in Northern Nevada during summer time poses some health risks. All the fires in California that are burning right now, well that smoke is headed our way. Usually you can see the mountains surrounding us on all sides, but lately those mountains are barely visible even though they are only a mile or so away. Our sun last evening was red. The moon was red too.
On my drive home as I turned the corner by our house, in addition to the smoke, I smelled skunk. My thought, "Ooh, someone hit a skunk." I pulled in and my husband met me at the door. He thought he smelled a weird smoke smell in the house. Walking in was horrible. The air was so acrid it actually burned my throat. It was a weird combination of the skunk smell from outside but mixed with what almost smelled like an electrical smell - which is never good especially in a 45 year old house with wiring done before there was an electrical code mandated. So I walked around with him looking for where the smell was concentrating. It seemed to be lingering in the hallway. We finally decided that it was the smell of the smoke from outside mixed with the skunk smell, and our hallway, we concluded, was the place where smells hang out. We don't have a/c, so we always open the house up at night to let in the cooler air, so we were letting in all the bad smells as well. After a while we decided to sniff the dog, and if you have never smelled a dog who has been sprayed by a skunk, count yourself lucky. Horrid.
We have a 9-year-old chocolate lab. Sweetest dog on the face of the earth, but hates water. I know, lab who hates water. She's an abomination to her breed. We aren't hunters, so until we moved back to Nevada and bought our current house, which is on almost an acre, we had never had a chance to witness her inborn (is that the right word?) nature of hunting. She used to chase things but never caught anything. Our house is bordered by open field on 2 sides, so we get lots of bunnies, various birds, scorpians, and other various desert life. We stopped encouraging her to "get the bunny" when one day she actually did. I felt guilty, but I honestly never thought she'd catch anything.
Okay, so back to the original story, she either chased a skunk or surprised one. She ended up sleeping in the garage. She had been sprayed and then came in and layed down on our carpet, which only perpetuated the lingering smell.
So after all this hoopla, I finally sat down to work at just about 10 pm. Got everything done by about 12:45 a.m. and went to bed.
I'm an 8-hour-a-night girl. I love the fact that I work at home and school at home. I rarely have anywhere to be before 10 a.m. and this is ideal for me. It ensures my sleep. I'm not a morning person either, so I get to have slow mornings.
Our house was built in 1964 and has the original roof, a cedar shake roof, if that means anything to anyone. And what with all the wildfires, 45-year-old cedar shingles are not what you want on your roof. I was told the roofers were going to be here around 7:30 this morning, but they were already walking around on the roof by 7:15 tearing off shingles. I probably could have slept through that, but my youngest, S- (age 2-1/2), heard them too and was banging on her door to come out.
So instead of having my leisuring morning with a cup of coffee in my hand, I got to wash a skunky dog in my bathtub (baking soda and vinegar work pretty well, but dogs aren't fond of the combination foaming and running around their mouth and eyes), and share my breakfast with S- because we only had 1 clean bowl in the house. (I don't like to share my bowl of cereal in the morning...it's part of the wake up routine!) Here's hoping the day gets a little less crazy. Luckily I don't think I have anywhere to go today.
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