The skunks are back. Although I'm not sure they ever left! We just moved into our house last August so this is our first summer in the new neighborhood. I've heard the smelly tales of skunks in Tennessee; skunks in the attic, skunks in crawl spaces, skunks with rabies and skunks in skunk races (why does everything I write have to rhyme?) Well, a couple nights ago we let the dogs out for their last run of the night and then went back inside to finish eating our snack at the kitchen table. It was around 9:00 pm and just as the air conditioner kicked on for it's next cycle, we smelled a skunk aroma coming thru the vents! Next thing I smelled was burning oil, somewhat like the smell of diesel fuel from my childhood memories on my father's work clothes. Now I'm thinking, "What's going on?. Did a skunk get caught in our brand new a/c unit? There's another $1000 repair bill!" We brought the dogs in, and lo and behold, one smelled and one didn't! The smell on the Sunny wasn't as overpowering as a skunk smell could be (thank goodness)! I tried wiping off his fur while Don went out to check the air conditioner! Back with the news-there's a skunk out there and did I want to go see it? Well, curiousity got the best of me so we both went outside and shined the flashlight over to the babygate by the air conditioner and there they were (yes I said "they"). At first I thought there were two of them but upon further count of eyes and white striped foreheads, it turns out there were four skunks total! They did look cute looking back at us-and we were a safe distance from the sprayer! They were outside the fence but we called the Pest Control experts to come out and check it out in the morning! Turns out that the little critters had been going in and out from our crawl space thru the air conditioning unit! So, the pest experts set a couple traps and will be back next week to shore up the back of the a/c unit. We also plan on putting some lattice work around the deck so they won't be tempted to come back. Although I'm not sure what happens to the skunk once he gets in the trap (may I don't want to know-and don't tell the PETA people). I'm sure it's not a pretty sight! Soup anyone?