Curing The Hangover

 Has the skunk saga come to an end?  I don't know.  I sure hope so!!  At 5:30 am I was on the road to Skunkville to pick up my cage.  I tiptoed around the big tree so I could see inside from a distance.  Sure enough, Big Momma was gone.  

However ... she certainly was mad as all get-out and left her mark for me.  She had chewed a 10" hole in the bottom of the tarp, even though the cage wires are only one inch squares.  I had carefully laid my two open-the-gate strings along the top.  They were chewed off at the point of tie and tossed on the ground nearby.  No way she could have reached them without standing on her hind legs. 

Feeling rather smug about the whole affair, I went back home and retrieved my game camera.  There was nothing ... not even one video.  The batteries were dead as a doornail.  Better luck next time.

Just to be sure there were no skunk condos available in my back yard, I hired a tree service to come clear the hangover.  Not the boozy kind, but the tree limb kind from the neighbor's yard that hangs over clear to the ground.  You know, the one who NEVER trims them up or cleans up any of the tree trash. 

 I was nice enough to tell him I was having the work done, whereupon the first thing he said was the fence was ALL mine, ALL located on my property.  It was NOT a community fence.  Funny, that's not what the prior owner said.  

Anyway .... I was pretty shocked at the price I was going to pay ($1500) but there's more work than I could possibly do and their chain-saw-on-a-stick is much longer than mine.  I had it done ten years ago for half the price.

The crew showed up right on time and backed into the yard.  Ooooooh ... nice equipment I told them!!

 Especially that chain saw!!  This guy was the MAN!!  That thing extends to twenty feet, meaning they trimmed it to 30 instead of the 10 feet I was paying for.  The crew of five went straight to work not wasting a second.

 If you've got hangover, this is the cure.  They went from one side to the other, dragging all those huge limbs back to the shredder.  They even cleaned up all the dead branches and trash that had fallen between my steel panels and the wooden fence.  There were no breaks, no talking and no messing around.

 You can't quite see just how far up they went in this image, but I was happy as could be.  The shredder filled their entire huge truck to the brim.  Now there's absolutely NO place for a stinky skunk condo.

 This Old Gal was a happy camper.  They were done in 90 minutes and cleaned up every bit of tree trash.  Then they swept up the small pieces and used a blower to remove every bit of dust from my concrete parking pad for the rig.  These guys are getting a rave review from me in spite of the cost.  

Once they were gone, I reset the skunk trap.  I have to say it's pretty stinky at this point!!  I even left a nice chunk of kitty food for the REAL kitty.  This morning I'll pick up the game camera and see if there are any other interlopers near the corral.  

I have to admit I like the calm quiet morning with no fear of skunk-sprayed dogs.  Trouble is, it rained much of last night (boy did we need that) which probably kept everything at bay.  We shall see!!!