Hoping for some final views above timberline, I hiked up to Rogers Pass today, where the wind made a zipper-like sound as it chased in fits across the Continental Divide.
On the steep climb to the pass, for a crazed moment something else chased in fits: a small chipmunk bounded up through the tundra and headed down the path toward me at warp speed. When it saw me, it shrieked in surprise--“Wheep! Wheep!” Then it leaped straight in the air, twice, turned around, and tore down the trail in the opposite direction, screaming all the way and waving its little tail high, as I bent over my trekking pole with laughter. (See more Rogers Pass pics.)
Late this afternoon, however, I got word of a very different wildlife encounter.
Those of you who read my Robber on 6th Street entry (Aug. 24) may recall that while I was away, a raccoon had entered my sweet-looking rented house and had looted the cat food. The story, however, did not end there. On four more nights after my return, as I lay in bed with the cat curled securely on the quilt with me, we heard knockings at the kitty door. She would hiss, and I would yell.
One of those nights, I had recently gotten out of bed to let the cat in and, in my deep sleep, forgot that I had re-closed the kitty door. When I heard something bang on the door, I launched from the bed, with eyes still shut, and grabbed the broom I had begun keeping out for security against furry things that go bump in the night. Enzo the kitty followed my two leaps to the kitty door. Disoriented, I shouted, “Hey! Hey! Nothing’s getting in this house!” And, still asleep, added the crowning glory at high volume, “What the f__!?!” Then I fully woke up.
The noise outside stopped. Enzo shook her head, bewildered, and retreated to another room. In the silence that followed, I considered how close the house was to the neighbors’ homes, how well sound carries through the yard, and the fact that the windows were wide open. Then I lay down in the bed, leaned my head back against the pillows and laughed out loud at the ridiculousness of the situation—or so I thought.
Today I spoke with Ron, the owner of the house. He returned home jetlagged from Europe at 11:30 on Monday night. He read the note I had left about the suspected raccoon and my solution of barricading the kitty door, but as Enzo was not at home, he left the kitty door open and went to bed. Soon he was awakened by a rapping.
“Enzo?” he called out. “Is that you?”
There was no response, so he looked out into the back yard. There, near the kitty door, stood not one but two large raccoons. He began yelling, and one ran away. The other stood its ground, looking back. He banged on the window and yelled some more, and finally it ambled off.
Later, Enzo bounced in, and they had a happy reunion. Ron went back to sleep.
At 5 a.m., he reports, he heard yet another knocking at the kitty door, and called Enzo’s name once again. No meow answered, so he got out of bed and turned on the light, just in time to see the black-and-white tail of a skunk disappear through the kitty door—after shooting a suffocating spray into the room.
“I was thinking, ‘I don’t want to be back home,’” Ron said. “I really, really don’t want to be here. What do you do when it’s 5:30 in the morning and there’s a skunk spraying in your bedroom? I had to leave, so I went to a coffee shop and just sat there for a while.”
Many thoughts ran through my head as I heard this news. My first reaction was horror—what a completely awful homecoming for him! And yet I had to laugh, as I would have had it happened to me—who could possibly have imagined that cast of characters would try to invade the house on the same night?
I also appreciated the fact that I had dodged a very large bullet. I had smelled the skunk several times, often on nights when Enzo caterwauled in the back yard; I had feared that she might fight with it and run into the house for safety, trailing it behind her. Now I see that was a perfectly well-founded fear. And if this scenario had happened on my watch, how on earth would I have explained it to Ron? “Dear Ron,” my note would say. “There is a bit of an issue with the house….”
He says the smell has gotten better, that he’s been keeping the windows open to air the place out. And while he didn’t say, I am betting that at night, the kitty door is now staying closed.
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