As events in the rest of the world accelerate, events in my world seem to be slowing down.  I have three brush piles in the back yard that I am slowly cleaning up.  For a decade or two I piled up branches whenever I trimmed or cut down trees.  Decided to clean up my yard and the brush piles were my first target.  Bought a little electric chipper and have been slowly making progress.  Using the mulch from the chipper to mulch the front beds.  Today I decided to take on some larger branches I took down a few days ago.  The plan was to cut these into three foot pieces, as straight as possible, for the wood piles and later burning in the fire pit.

After getting my long extension cord out, my small electric chainsaw and putting on gloves and glasses I had made about three cuts when I smelled something.  We have skunks living around here and I believe they have made burrows under all of my brush piles.  They don’t bother me but I’m always a little nervous that one time when I’m pulling a branch off of the pile I’ll rouse a skunk.  So I looked around and saw this little guy.  No mom any place to be seen and he was behind my fully fenced in yard.  He could have come through the iron fence but no way any larger animal could.  I was sawing just a few feet from this guy and he didn’t move.  At first I thought he might be dead.  I couldn’t see any breathing and his eyes were open but he seemed alive.  I took a picture and  decided to call it a day.  Came back less than an hour later and he had moved on.