Well, those nasty storms rolled through here last night and we "thought" we were prepared. We sat here all warm and cuddlie..DH snoozing through the thunder, lightening and wind while I sewed and kept an eye on Patches. Then....the dreaded phone call..." My DH took an alternate route to the store and right now he is using his chain saw to cut a tree off your fence while your cows are trying to get out"...YUCK!!! So we rush out....to find...that in addtion to the tree...a fairly large part of our barn roof is now laying in the pasture behind the barn. We drive past the HUGE old beautiful Oak tree that is now flattening our pasture fence and we decide to just call the cows up and lock them in the barn due to the mess and it is still pouring rain, lightening and thundering.
We pull into the lot and I start jogging to the back of the barn and come to a screeching halt!!! Running full tilt right at me is Mama SKUNK and her 4 or 5 babies!! They are scared and agitated. Mama won't be intimadated and she runs straight for a stall...she loses the babies who are now wildly running in circles in front of me and I'm now screaming for DH. I can get the cows to come in, but I need a gate/panel to block the opening once I get them into the barn, and of course the skunks are between me and the panel.....DH kicks dirt in their faces to distract them..(they are about the size of 6-7 week old kittens and certainly old enough to spray) Finally...I have the cows up and have tied the panel in place...we've done all we can for the time being. Off we go to the house.... where I notice that the wind has blown my all my corn in the garden over :(
Once we get in the house, I sit back down at the machine, thanking all the powers that we still have electricity, then...blink, blink...we don't. It came back on finally right before noon today.
So now...its off to deal with all the "aftermath"....Like I tell DH....it could have been MUCH worse, so I'm really thankful! For now, the corn has been stood back up, we've put fence wire all around the tree so we can let the cows back out while we try to find someone who has a BIG chain saw...and we'll call the insurance company for the roof...so...just another day on the farm...! :wink: Oh...and I'm really thankful that we didn't get to know those skunks any better! :wink: