Stinking to High Heaven!

 

by Pa Rock

Nature Lover

Eight years ago next month, after a particularly beautiful fall drive across northern Arkansas in which I amused myself by counting and categorizing roadkill along the way, and after tallying five dead skunks, I sat down and wrote a blog focused on Loudon Wainwright, III's minor musical hit, "Dead Skunk in the Middle of the Road."

Yesterday morning, just after daylight, as I was taking Rosie out for her morning constitutional, memories of that old blog post came rushing back when I spotted what I thought was a dead cat in the middle of the road in front of my house.  Upon closer examination I discovered that it was (you've already guessed it!) a dead skunk.   The poor creature was not emitting an odor (yet), and was exactly in the center of the road between my property on the east and my new neighbors' place (whose household includes a county deputy) on the west.

If it had been a dead cat, I would have taken the initiative by the tail and removed it at least to the back of my property, but as it was a skunk, I chose to let the creature lie in quiet repose at the center of the paved (and fairly busy) country road.  It was a county issue.

But the county never showed.  No surprise there.

Today the skunk is still dead in middle of the road, and as with the one immortalized by Loudon Wainwright, III, it's stinking to high heaven!  The smell started wafting through the air around noon yesterday, and this morning it is the defining feature of the neighborhood.  

If the neighbors, or the passing motorists, or the county are waiting on Pa Rock to pick it up, they can hold their breath and drive on by.  When it comes to dead skunks, I'm as stubborn as a Missouri mule - and probably smell like one, too!