Surprise!!

It was early, early spring in 2009. So early that technically, it was still winter. Clayton was working nights, so it fell to me to load hay each day to feed the cows. Feeding on your own is no picnic; there's no one to get out and open/close gates for you; plus, you have to park the truck, get out, throw off a bale or two, get back in the truck, drive a few yards, and repeat. Over and over. And when you first get there, the cows are excited to eat, and when you get out of the truck to throw the hay, the cows are right up in your face. A more timid girl would be intimidated by this, but not me. Oh no, I show those cows who's boss. I'm not scared one bit. Unless they look at me cross-eyed. And I definitely don't go behind them too closely where they could kick me. But I'm not scared. No, sirree. Anyway, it’s a lot of work to feed on your own, but it made me feel like I was contributing. When there was no one else around who could conveniently feed each day, and the need came up, I stepped up and took the challenge. Because that’s what you do in a family. And I got to experience lots of cool things, like tagging new calves ALL BY MYSELF. Talk about an adrenaline rush. But that’s a story for another day.

So anyhow, on this particular day, I’m loading hay onto the truck. Our haystack at that time was in a field in Erda on the west side of the highway. I take the dogs with me for company and for them to get some exercise, and because they enjoy coming. They particularly enjoy rummaging through the haystack in search of mice. My dogs can pounce on mice as good as any cat can pounce. When Cooper catches one, he’ll play with it, throw it up in the air, let it run away a little, pounce on it again, and will play with it until it dies. Or until it is broken and can’t run away anymore. Then he’s done with it, and moves on to find the next mouse. Baxter, on the other hand, will usually pounce, carry his prey off a few steps, and then crunch it’s little bones and chew it down. Sometimes he just crunches the bones and doesn’t eat it. But he does enjoy eating a good mouse here and there. As we get closer to the bottom of the haystack, the anticipation of finding mice gets stronger, because the mice generally hide toward the bottom. The dogs stand to my side and wait for me to lift a bale, and then they search eagerly for any mice.

On this particular day, we had used up almost all of the hay in the stack. A few months previous, we had found a dead skunk near the haystack, and consequently, some of the hay where this skunk had lived smelled fairly strongly of skunk-stink. As we got closer and closer to the bottom of the stack, the smell was stronger and stronger. But I paid it no mind and just focused on doing my job, stinky hay and all. Cooper was sniffing furiously at a certain hay bale, and I just knew that he had cornered a mouse underneath it. As I got ready to lift that hay bale, I got Cooper even more excited. “Ready, Cooper? Where’s the mouse? Where’s the mouse? Get it!” I lifted up the hay bale, and Cooper pounced. Right on top of a live skunk.

I immediately backed up, dropped the hay bale, and ran away several yards. Heck, I didn’t want to get sprayed! I yelled at Cooper to get away from the skunk, but it was too late. He had been skunked. Literally. The poor dog ran away and began retching. The smell was overpowering. If you’ve never been up close to a live skunk before, count yourself lucky. It was 10 times worse than smelling a skunk that has been run over by a car. Maybe 20 times worse. It was a horrible, horrible smell. And poor Cooper had gotten it right in his face. He threw up repeatedly, and his eyes were watering. Baxter saw the skunk waddling off and starting going after it, but luckily, I got him to stop before he got too close to the darn thing. Or maybe he smelled it as he got closer and got wise.

Sigh. I called up our vet’s office and told them that we were coming in. They have a spray called “Skunk-off” that is supposed to help with the smell. We drove up to Tooele to the vet’s, Cooper riding in the back of the truck, but even so, the whole truck stinks. Baxter stinks. I stink. I feel really cool and good looking as I wait in line at the vet’s, with my feeding gear on, which means dirty coveralls, muddy boots, and knitted hat, all covered with hay. People are looking at me funny, probably ‘cause I look goofy and smell gross. When it’s my turn, the vet comes out to the parking lot and takes a quick look at Cooper to make sure he’s ok. He tells me that they could tell when I arrived at their office, because the smell came with us. Gee, thanks. I get the “Skunk-off” and we douse Cooper with it liberally. It helps some. Then I cowboyed up, and drove back to Erda to finish loading hay and eventually got the cows fed. We all smelled pretty bad for a few days. Sometimes life really stinks. But you end up with good stories to tell.