A word to the wild

Publisher's Memo

Over the years my family has developed a nodding acquaintance with skunks. It is, I might add, a learning experience one tends to remember.

The first encounter with a skunk happened when I was out of town on business. My usual routine is to phone home every evening to hear the news, and on this particular night the news was not good.

"There's a skunk in the kitchen," one of our children announced. "But it's okay. We've closed the doors from the kitchen to the rest of the house and opened the back door. We'll wait until the skunk decides to leave."

Good idea.

That experience turned out well because the skunk did indeed leave. On another occasion, however, it didn't turn out well at all.

That was when our younger daughter - in the dark - rode her bike rapidly around a corner of the house. She and a skunk - both of them startled out of their wits - met for what would be, for both of them, an encounter neither would ever forget.

In the blink of an eye the skunk had sprayed its pungent perfume on our daughter who, letting out a scream that would wake the dead, rushed into the house. One whiff and we implored her to undress, toss her clothes out the door and then, before taking a shower, try to wash the smell off with tomato juice.

Yes, we'd been told tomato juice was the magic elixir which could erase the smell. It works... sort of. However, when our daughter took a shower, the mixture of water and skunk perfume made things worse.

In a day or two, and with the help of additional tomato juice, the smell disappeared. I don't remember what we did with the clothes, but they disappeared, too.

This year several skunks in the vicinity of our house, which is located on the edge of Long Island Sound, have been augmented by more wildlife than we've seen in a long time. We now have one lonely deer, plus a lot of wild rabbits and, in the salt waters of Long Island Sound, more egrets than we can count, plus something relatively new to our area -- cormorants and loons.

Perhaps it's because of the books I read as a child, but I have always believed - maybe it's a childhood fantasy - that many animals are able to talk to each other. "Here he comes," I can just hear the mother rabbit saying to her children. "Hide!"

So, what was that deer thinking this morning when we met, almost nose-to-nose, as I left for work?

"Good morning, my friend," I said out loud to the deer. "You look great."

The deer, not moving an inch, looked at me with kindly eyes, as if to say, "Thanks, and for an old guy, you don't look so bad either."

This childhood fantasy - that animals talk with each other and react in a human way to their surroundings - can be intimidating. Do the birds and animals think I'm nosy as I peer at them through binoculars? Why am I finding it harder and harder to kill a fly, step on an ant or trap a mouse? And how did that tiny lady-- bug feel when I squished it last night?

Well, enough of that.

Encounters with wild creatures can be fun, so if you and your children have had any experiences you'd like to share, please send them to me. I'd like that.

Copyright Early Years, Inc. Nov/Dec 2002
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved