My old dog didn’t learn. He chased the skunk until it ran out of spray. The skunk ran away! Fortunately that only happened once; the skunk learned its lesson.
My squirrel family has reduced to just Mom. She chased her teenagers out. I expect husband to come home soon. And honeymoon antics to commence.
She’s a fat Mom. She eats well. All the birdseed she can steal and my nut trees are near. She’s livin’ high on the hog.
I have a thread about my recent snake encounter.
Coming home from the diabetic clinic my DIL and I saw the biggest raccoon ever.
It was tall and fat. Just walking down the county road . Like he owned it.
I ‘heard’ turkeys on my walk this afternoon.
I’ve run pointing dogs for 25+ years, often in porkie country. I found
a competitors dog an hour and a half after it had been lost, front legs,
chest, snout, mouth (inside & out) full of quills, carrying a live
chukar in it’s mouth! That dog would leave birds if it caught wind of a
porcupine, kill the porkie, then go back to hunting! Glad your pooch &
the skunk were OK (alright, maybe just your pup ). One of my 4H
families called about 2 weeks ago, their dogs had gotten into a skunk.
Told them what to do about it, they texted me 2 hours later about how
well it had worked 
I’m sure the skunk went home and thought - “what a morning!” and then took a long nap.
Bonus - I had 3 piles of puke to clean up when I got home from work. I’m guessing it was the combination of skunk juice ingested as he barked at the back end of the skunk and being nervous because he knew I was mad at him.
Ah, what a mess While I get mad momentarily, for me, it’s just a
“you wanted hunting dogs, that’s what they’re gonna do!” I guess I’ve
had 25 years to get used to it Problem with cleaning up the puke is
I often make the job twice as bad 
Not because I think it’s gross or
anything, it’s a completely involuntary reaction 
I don’t think porcupines live in Arkansas. If they did Mr.Wrekkers Beagles would have got into them, big-time. Those dogs have tried every animal in the woods and a few ATVs. The last skunking was bad. It was a Mom skunk and her litter who all learned to spray that day.
Mr. Wrekker mixed up a barrel of Dawn bubbly water and one with vinegar. And dunked them all in each. I still smelled skunk for weeks. Stoopid hounds.
Today I saw some kinda little birds in my fig tree. I think maybe they were sparrows of some sort. Irritating little chirpy noise. And fast. They would fly in the tree and zoom out with a bite of fig.
I have a red tail hawk and a Coopers hawk regularly. I worry about them snatching my 6# Yorkie
We were at VooDoo Brewery in New Kensington, drinking in their big outdoor bier garden, when a hawk flew through the area and landed on the edge of the building, looking over the drinkers. It was a juvenile red tail hawk, acting goofy as is their wont.
Porcupines are strange. They fill a very specific ecological niche. In Pennsylvania they’re only found in the northern part of the state, although their range has extended southerly over the past few decades.
I saw two young raccoons this morning, exploring the low tide beach. I didn’t see a mother raccoon anywhere in site.
Today I saw a Turkey, two male and three female House Finches, a Woodhouse’s Scrub Jay, a Black-capped Chickadee, a White-breasted Nuthatch, a Pine Sisken, five Evening Grosbeaks, a Rock Squirrel, a female Broad-tailed Hummingbird, a Colorado Chipmunk, a Spotted Towhee, a female Black-chinned Hummingbird, a male and a female Lesser Goldfinch, two Chipping Sparrows, and a Juniper Titmouse. The Turkey appeared to have an injured leg.
For the past 10 days an eastern wood-pewee has used our bird feeder pole was its base of operations. This is significant because in 30 years of living at this house we’ve never seen one before.
In fact, I have no memory of learning about pewees, despite thumbing through bird guides dozens of times in my life. But the guide books show them as being common in the area.
It is usually seen on a high perch, watching for prey and sallying out to snatch insects. After these short flights, it often (but not always) returns to the same perch. Nondescript plumage with whitish wingbars; base of the bill is usually orange but hard to see. Note the loud song that rings through eastern woodlands: “PEE-a-weeeEEE.”
Yeah, that’s our bird.
This morning while walking the dog I saw a
A Timber Rattlesnake on the side of a gravel road. https://srelherp.uga.edu/snakes/crohor.htm
It was making its way to the brush, so I gave it wide berth and continued on my way, but there was no mistaking the chevron pattern on its back!
Didn’t actually see them but I ran into chiggers who were not keen on social distancing.
Behind my left knee I have 7or 8 very itchy spots. The little jerks.
I saw this a couple nights ago when feeding the horses.
StG
I found a dying cicada on top of my mailbox yesterday. Freaked me out. It’s my understanding this is not our year; we’re not due until next year. Wonder where the hell it came from.
Cicadas come out every year. It’s just that some swarms are bigger/more famous than others.
As I was walking the dogs on the trail (in the woods) this morning, I passed rock about 1’ high and 2’ across. On top of the rock was the butt end (stem end) of what looked to be a jalapeno pepper! Someone was taking a walk, enjoying a pepper, then bit off the final bite and carefully set the end on top of the rock. 
Day before yesterday my wife and I were canoeing down a river in Mich. About an hour into the trip I moved my flipflop shod feet and noticed the watersnake beneath them in the bottom of the canoe!
Sure, it was a little-un, but a bit of a surprise nonetheless!
Later at the lake we saw a juvenile 5-lined skink. I coulda done w/o knowing 8" adults were crawling around out there…
I woke up to a large dog on my deck.
It’s a Shepherd/hound mix.
It has a docked tail and clipped ears.
I’m pretty certain he’s a drop off. It happens a bunch, around here.
He is clean has recently clipped nails.
I called the shelter and sent Son-of-a-wrek out to inquire. It would be unusual if he just wandered this far out.