Peeeewwww!!! Skunks!

Skunks are supposedly a good thing in the country.  They eat grasshoppers, crickets, cut worms and things like that; but Pop and I do not want to share our living space with them.  I suppose we should be grateful for their appetite for other things we don't want around, but quite frankly, those other things don't smell like skunks do!

It is currently mating season for skunks at Four Sisters Farm.  When the weather warms a bit in February and March, these smelly cousins of weasels become amorous.  They apparently also become really hungry...hungry enough to come to the back door and eat whatever the farm cats have not devoured from their evening meal.

Pop protects our home in a serious way and protecting it from varmints is on his list; so this spring he has diminished the skunk population by a small number...but not without cost!  The latest stinky guy who help himself to a little cat food met his demise near our back door and neither Pop nor I have ever smelled a skunk so stinky!!

We had to do something about the stench!  This thing must have sprayed about an 8'x8'x8' area that stinks to the sky.  We couldn't come through our back door without nearly losing our lunch (and I don't mean we misplaced our brown bags)!    So, of course, I googled "get rid of skunk smell" and found a plethora of information from commercial products to home remedies and settled on one to try.  (Credit goes to: Lynn at Lynn's Kitchen Adventures and we are grateful).  It worked!  And it took a LOT of work!

I mixed the ingredients in my red plastic watering can:

1 quart hydrogen peroxide
1/4 cup baking soda
1-2 tsp liquid dish washing soap

I also added about two cups of water since I had so much area to cover.  I donned some rubber gloves and grabbed some worn rags that I could throw away when I was finished and got busy washing the back door, storm door, the house on both sides of the door, and the concrete walkway.  I also employed a stiff marine broom to scrub things down. After I scrubbed it all down, I rinsed everything with water and began to relax a bit.  There is still a faint, lingering scent that will go away in time; and the cat food will no longer be left out at night.  Good night, farm cats.  Good night, skunks (and opossums, and raccoons, and whatever else)!