The implication of the headline would seem to be that we had a rotten holiday season. That would be false. We’ve had a great month of December and early part of January. We cruised down to Santa Cruz to cut down our tree, Tiff flew out to Baltimore for a college reunion, I’ve already chronicled Berka’s and my trip to the Raiders game, we spent Christmas in sunny San Diego with Tiff’s side of the family, spent New Year’s in San Francisco, watched Michigan win a BCS game, hiked up Mount Tam, ate some incredible food and celebrated my birthday in the Grand Lakes district of Oakland. There has been, however, one literal and figurative stink permeating the past month. We have skunks, an incredible nightly annoyance that we have yet to solve. But I’ll get to them in a minute. First the happy side of the holidays.
Nothing says Christmas like a pretty lady wielding a large serrated knife. Tiff and I started a tradition of cutting down our tree the first year we moved here. And so, for the sixth straight year we made our way to the Santa Cruz mountains this past December. Tiff typically takes a largely ceremonial photo in front of our soon-to-be tree (see above) and afterward I do all the cutting (see below).
It’s also an excuse to drive down the coast, stare at the ocean and eat some seafood in Half Moon Bay.
I know next to nothing about Tiff’s trip to greater Baltimore (probably a good thing) aside from the fact that she and college friends Ashley, Kimi and Julie did it as a surprise for Julia, who just had her second. I also know that Julia’s first, pictured above, appears to be quite adorably putting on makeup with the other girls as they prepare to go out, and I know that Ashley drank breast milk. That’s pretty much all I needed to know.
As this was our first Christmas in our own house, I was fairly excited to put up lights. Our house being elevated from the street, I did not have to get up on the roof. I did, however, find a way to make the lights more difficult than they needed to be by vastly underestimating the amount I would need to wind around the length of the front porch and into our pine tree. This resulted in three separate trips to Walgreens and my buying out the store’s entire supply of discounted lights. No Clark Griswold, but it was a good start for the first year.
We spent four days, including Christmas, in wretched San Diego, where we somehow survived the 70-degree weather and spotless beaches. In between the revelry, presents and best fish tacos I’ve ever eaten, we stopped by the historic Hotel Del Coronado. Sixteen U.S. presidents, including our current chief, have slept under its iconic red dome in addition to patrons like Thomas Edison, Charlie Chaplin, Dr. Seuss and Marilyn Monroe, whose movie “Some Like it Hot” was shot there.
In other holiday miscellany:
I met co-worker Dan Jung and son Aaron for some serious Dim Sum down by the Emeryville waterfront. The food was excellent, though I learned it’s probably not a smart idea to encourage small children to treat chop sticks like drum sticks as they will do just that.
Holiday shopping in Union Square and overall tomfoolery.
More brilliant sunsets.
New Year’s Eve pub hopping through Chinatown on our way Cobb’s Comedy Club in North Beach. The Daily Show’s John Oliver rang in our New Year with a champagne toast and gave our abs a solid workout with some ridiculously funny stuff. I’m a big fan, and would highly recommend seeing him at some point.
We had a Sugar Bowl feast and Michigan made it extra sweet with an overtime victory over Virginia Tech.
The cat was of no help as I worked deep into the night for the BCS title game.
Our hike up Mount Tam.
And Tiff surprised me with a bar-hopping and food eating tour of Oakland that culminated with a movie at the classic Grand Lake theatre.
Which brings us to le skunk. My nemesis. For the better part of a month now we’ve been dealing with noises under the house. At first we tried to ignore them. “It’ll go away,” we said. Then they got louder and more frequent and went deeper into the night. Scratching, scraping, metal-pounding sounds. I wince just thinking about it. Nothing says a good night’s sleep like having multiple nocturnal animals tearing apart the inner guts of your house. That’s the worst part. Secondary to the sounds and home damage is the smell, which is substantial and daily. By absolute luck, I happened to find the vermin’s entrance one night as a very large skunk slipped past me into a very small hole by our outdoor water faucet. Over the next few days, we made several attempts to close off the hole.
The original hole. Note, I can barely fit my fist into the area around the downward pipe.
The first solution. Oh yeah, some fencing cut and molded around the pipes should keep them out, right? Well, sort of. I was able to mostly keep them out. But on the night of the national title game, a night that is fairly important as far as my job goes, a skunk wedged itself in between the house and fencing. This resulted in a horrific writhing and shaking sound that began to rattle all the pipes in the house. Not my favorite working conditions. So, in between posts, I had to free the skunk by smashing my fence from afar with a broom handle. After freeing the skunk, it slithered down below the house.
Solution two. Stuff a ton of bricks into the hole, then cover the hole with even more bricks. The first few variations of this failed, as somehow the skunk was able to move them out of the way. But finally, stacking them 3-feet high seemed to do the trick. Problem solved, right? Well, the skunks have not gotten back into that particular hole, but now they’ve began tunneling underneath our patio. Which has resulted in some areas collapsing and our side garden to be almost completely uprooted. So now, each night, armed with a broom and a headlamp, Tiff and I take turns watching the patio, sleeping at intervals of 30 minutes. It’s like having a stinky newborn, only there’s no upside and the skunks are not very cuddly.
In fact, not only is their spray and digging an annoyance, but they are one of the largest carriers of rabies. So that’s pretty sweet. At this point, I’ve kind of lost it when it comes to the skunks. I have zero care in regards to whether or not they spray me. Three or four times each night I come within two feet of them and would like nothing more than to squash them. I’ve tried peeing on the side of the house (marking my territory, not for kicks). We bought something called the “Yard Gard,” which emits high-frequency sounds specifically aimed at deterring skunks. There are buckets of ammonia on our patio and some kind of skunk-specific pepper.
And yet each night, usually between 4 and 6:30 a.m., I’ll make my rounds around the house and find yet another area of the patio has been completely uprooted — an area that was fine 30 minutes before — and at the end of the tunnel I’ll see the ugly beady eyes and bottle nose of le skunk. Stabbing them with the broom usually gets them to leave, and then you get to spend the next 45 minutes packing dirt back into the tunnel they’ve just dug before replacing the bricks. It’s pretty awesome.
You’re probably asking, “Why don’t you just call Animal Services and have them take care of it?” A good question. We did. The only way they will remove a skunk is if it clearly has rabies (if they’re walking around during the day is a sign of this) or if they are dead (one can only dream). Otherwise, they charge $150 per trap and then an additional $300 per skunk removed. Now, I’ve never seen more than two skunks at once. So that’s just $900 (seriously!!!!!!!!!!???), but I’ve been told that we are approaching skunk birthing season, at which point there could be as many as 16 skunks. In any event, that’s not happening.
Even as I type this post at 8:42 p.m. on Monday, I’ve had to run out onto the deck to chase them away. I’ve poured an incredible amount of skunk powder over their favorite digging spots and plan on shining bright lights at them. I’m hoping this will only last a few more nights before they decide I’m crazier than they are. If not, it’s time to buy a trap. And if that doesn’t work it’s time to pay the skunk piper.
Me and the worthless cat of ours camp out for skunks at 4 a.m.
In any event, I’ve managed to get them on video a few times (why, I’m not sure). The first video is the PG version.
And this, embodying the holiday spirit, is the R-rated version.
I’m beginning to feel a little like Carl Spackler. Looking forward to another good night.
Au revoir.
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Tags: San Diego
