Creek Running North

Busy day! Damn, you hyperactive people make me jealous.

Hey, what’s Zeke doing getting skunked at his age??

Hey, what’s Zeke doing getting skunked at his age??

I informed him last night he wouldn’t pass his current age if he kept this shit up, I tell you what.

did you try tomato juice?

Vinegar also helps, if you have any of that.  Just don’t use soap first.

glad to learn zeke’s still getting up to mischief, almost as much as learning you live in a neighbourhood where several people on a saturday ask after your dog’s health.

you’re not fooling anyone mr clarke: your blog starts and ends with That Creature. congratulations on leading a successful life.

the writing’s pretty darned good too. thanks for that as well. :c)

Tomato juice doesn’t work, from what I hear. We didn’t even try. Instead, I recalled that Hank Fox had on this very blog given a recipe I think he had used on the late lamented Tito: peroxide and baking soda with a little dish soap as a surfactant. We had some old, weak peroxide and a very small amount of baking soda in the house last night, which was enough to knock the stench down to the point where we could sleep.

Today I went to the store (and the dump, where I left the retaining wall from yesterday) and bought a gallon of peroxide and about six pounds of baking soda. Mixed a quarter cup baking soda per quart peroxide with a squirt of soap, hosed Zeke down a little, then worked the stuff into his fur as best I could, which he hated. That took care of his front end. Mixed the same amount up for his back end. He smells like a regular stinky old dog now instead of the recently-skunked kind. The stuff works wonders.

We keep several bottles of peroxide on hand around here after *not* having any left after the first skunked dog encounter.  Tried the tomato juice as a last resort (it was around midnight when encounter #2 happened).  No stores open at that time out here in the sticks.  The juice didn’t do much except turn a Tricolored Collie’s white collar an ugly pink.  The peroxide does work like a charm, but turns the black part of the coat a weird bleached brown that looks like a black sheep’s fleece after a summer under the hot sun.  Interesting how our older collie lived here and never got skunked during her 14 years.  Younger collie has had it happen twice in 7 years.  Older collie was very disgusted with younger collie the first time round.  She’s gone now, so couldn’t disapprove this time.  Younger collie seems to think skunks are kitties that want to play.  Obviously didn’t learn that they aren’t after the first encounter.  Hope that lesson has finally sunken in.  Think maybe it has.  Last couple of times eau de skunk floated indoors in the evening, younger collie was not interested in going out.  She seems to have gained a little wisdom.

All that work would take me at least three days ;->.

Your video of the buck that did the tap dance on the hunter cracked me up, so I sent it to a friend who runs a self-defense forum.  A reply from a forum reader claims that the fool deserved the attack for stupidity as well as cruelty: he had doused himself with doe urine during the rut.  The buck was crazed with lust rather than revenge.

I love your blog, Chris, although, at the age of seventy, my knees and thermostat are shot and a hike around the block in eighty-degree weather, shaded by midwestern locusts and oaks and maples, would kill me.  You supply me with surrogate hiking.  I also enjoy your reports on the life of Zeke, the animals and plants and hawks you see on your hikes, the work you do around your house, your neighborhood, your views on the state of the land and the country, your thoughtful commentary on everything that comes your way. (I hope Pombo’s going down.) Creek Running North is such excellent writing, such a gift to the culture, such a stay against entropy that, even if you never did another constructive thing in your life, you would have served the planet well.  Hearing regularly from such a wry good spirit as you does me good.

In my own city garden this week I’ve seen mourning cloaks, humming birds, cardinals, dragonflies, crickets, toads, monarchs, swallowtails, wrens, goldfinches, mice, chipmunks, and myriad unknown insects.  I don’t go out at night much, but still I’m surprises to have seen no more than one mosquito all summer without a pesticide or even a repellent on the premises.  The basil, rosemary, tomatoes, peppers, nasturtiums, and parsley are giants among maybe fifty species of flowers this year, with very little fertilizer in a 40x40 front yard that is entirely garden, with mostly perennial plants.

Next week the sawbones will install one new knee, for a start, in the hope that, by next summer, I’ll be able to walk through the woods to the Mississippi River again and will no longer be so much in need of your hiking surrogacy.  I’m happy to be alive and thank you for the pleasure your thinking and doing regularly give me.

Max was too much of a coward to go after a live skunk, but he and his buddies found a dead one after Spring thaw one year, and rolled around in it with much enthusiasm. Not as bad as a direct hit from a non-ex-skunk, but pretty malodorous nonetheless. He also shied away from foxes (which his friends chased to no avail), but funnily enough thunder didn’t cow him. I suspect he thought it was a large dog, and he barked quite angrily at it.

Now, after reading about your day, I have to go take a nap.

So, why do you have a sign up for the law & order candidate?

What a nice day—you know, all except for the Zeke getting skunked part.  Poor ol’ Zekey!

So hydrogen peroxide is known for its bleaching characteristics, too.  Is Zeke blonder in his blond parts now?

Is Zeke blonder in his blond parts now?

Hard to tell. He’s pretty white to begin with, and that’s gotten truer as he gets older.

So, why do you have a sign up for the law & order candidate?

He’s running on the law’n’order thing because he can: he’s a San Francisco cop. His sign’s on our lawn because he’s 1) a relatively liberal guy, 2) a gay man and having openly gay politicians in the ‘burbs is a good thing, and 3) a neighbor and friend.

Not that you need, want or expect my approval, but it seems to me that is an excellent set of reasons.  Carry on! :coolsmile:

incidentally, treepeony, my hike down into the grand canyon and back out last year was done in the company of a woman who’d recently had a total hip replacement, and it was her second hike down to the river and back since the surgery.

So I’ll expect to see you at the Mount Diablo trailhead to hike to the top with me in, say, March. Do we have a deal?

Dude, you have waaaaay too much energy.  (Maybe that’s the heat and humidity out here talking.)

I’m glad you managed to de-skunk Zeke.  Until this year, I’d never fully grasped how awful a skunked dog must be; I’d always assumed that it was a slightly stronger version of the smell you get when you drive by a dead skunk on the road.  Then we had a skunk under our front porch have a bit of a moment, and MAN was that a powerful odor!  You could actually taste it wafting through the air, and it was strong enough to induce near-gagging.  I can’t imagine what it’s like dealing with it up-close and personal.  Yikes.