This past weekend featured a glorious, and perhaps final, blast of summer weather so it was only natural for folks to be outside enjoying the warm temperatures and beautiful fall scenery.
It would have been a perfect weekend to tackle all of those fall home improvement projects like cleaning out the gutters, taking down the pool, checking the caulking on the windows or performing one final mowing of the lawn. I say would have been, because none of those chores took place in our home this past weekend.
Saturday was a day spent taking photos of a seventh- and eighth-grade football game in Houlton and then out to Hodgdon to shoot a Renegades football contest. While I was certainly enjoying the heat, I don’t think the same could be said for those playing football while wearing pounds of heavy equipment.
Saturday also was a day to sneak in one more opportunity to grill up some tasty treats on the barbecue. Cleaning off the grill, I was reminded of a scene that played out just a few short weekends ago when I heard a strange rustling emanating from the grill.
Hoping it was something like a friendly squirrel that had somehow found its way into the barbecue, I slowly pulled the cover off, while the scurrying escalated to a frantic flurry of activity. That’s when the smell hit me. Yup, a skunk.
Seeing as how the grill was located right next to the door to our basement, I simply couldn’t leave it where it stood. If I had, I was sure the skunk would somehow find its way into our basement, or at the very least, the dog or cat would discover it during a trip into the backyard. I also had visions of our cat being chased around by an amorous Pepe LePew from all those old Bugs Bunny cartoons I used to watch as a kid.
My first thought was somehow, some way, a skunk had made its way inside the grill through the opening in the bottom. Using a broom handle, I slowly lifted the lid, only to find everything intact.
So after careful examination, I slowly pulled the barbecue away from the house to get a better look in behind it. Sure enough, cowering in the corner behind the propane tank was a small black and white bundle of stinky goodness.
My first thought was to chase the critter out, while somehow avoiding the pungent spray that was sure to follow. But how?
Let’s try the hose. Yeah, that sounded like a good idea. I unraveled the hose and proceeded to spray into the back of the barbecue, but that only made the smell worse as the frightened critter dashed from one corner of the grill to the next.
So I then got braver and tried to reach around from the front of the grill and sent a blast of water down on top of the animal. That too proved pointless as the little stinker just sat there and took it.
I made a quick call to the Houlton Police Department to see if the Animal Control Officer was available, but as fate would have it, he was out of town that day. Not wanting to tip it over to force the animal out, I had no choice but to try to wheel the barbecue as far away from the house as possible and hope the animal would leave on its own.
All the while I was wheeling it, I kept feeling that the skunk was going to jump out and pounce on me, so I am sure it made for a comical sight. Every two steps I would stop, look and listen, as I was poised to go running in the opposite direction at a moment’s notice.
Fortunately, the animal never emerged during its ride to edge of the lawn and when I returned home later that day, Pepe had wandered off to parts unknown, or at least into the neighbor’s yard where the whole scenario could play out all over again.
As for the barbecue, I quickly decided to prevent future critters from taking up residency for the fall/winter by boarding up the back of it with plywood. That should work, at least until it is time to put it away for the season.
Joseph Cyr is a staff writer for the Houlton Pioneer Times. He can be reached at pioneertimes@ nepublish.com or 532-2281.
