Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Line Edits - done!

I pleased to say that line edits on Moonlighting are done. Yippee! Now I can go back to simultaneously writing a sequel to Moonlighting that I'm currently calling California Scheming, and another Vermont mystery called Tank and Maggie Meet the Mob. The advantage to writing two at once is if I get stuck or bored with one, I simply switch to the other.
The down side is it's hard to keep the characters straight. Sometimes they get into each other's story. That's not too bad, as they are both set in the same town and it wouldn't be too unusual for them to cross over - as long as I can keep the story lines straight!

Update on the Skunk

For those of you who were worrying about the skunk, I'm relieved to tell you that we didn't catch him. I'm assuming if he was rabid that he went and died somewhere peacefully, if you can die peacefully with rabies. The same is probably true if he had distemper. Either way, he's either alive and has decided to leave us alone or is off in skunk heaven, and I didn't have to do the dirty deed myself.
What we did catch was a very angry grey cat. When I opened the cage she took off like a shot and will probably never grace our lawn with her presence again.  Sorry kitty.

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Skunk 4, Kate 0 - The Skunk is Winning

Yes, you read that right. The skunk is smarter than I am. This will be the fourth day in a row that I will have to wash the skunk smell out of my dogs. The dogs are even dumber than I am.

The first time the dogs warned us - but it was too late, the skunk got them anyway. And then it came up onto our porch and taunted the dogs, trying to pull the bed out from under Annie and out between the bars of her crate. It didn't succeed. So, in revenge, it sprayed poor Midnight through the door of her kennel. It came back four times, regardless of the bright lights, barking dogs and door banging humans. A neighbor came and tried to kill the skunk with a 22. No luck. Skunk 1, Human 0.

The next day I cleaned up the dogs, the porch and the dog crates. Such fun. I left to pick up children and take them to ball practice, and when I got home (in daylight) Moose was in the brier patch next to our garage with the skunk in his mouth. That didn't last long. The dogs chased the skunk into the woods and the neighbor appeared again, but couldn't catch up with the skunk who rushed across the road and up a steep wooded slope. Skunk 2, Human 0.

Now before people start writing me about cruelty to animals let me say I'm usually against killing creatures just because they are inconvenient. I'm inconvenient myself sometimes. But this skunk was acting a tad strangely and Rabies did occur to us. A rabid animal will die anyway and is a danger to us all.

However, as our friend wasn't having any luck killing the skunk we put out a trap. The dogs smell like skunk again, but he's nowhere to be found. Certainly not in the trap. Skunk 3, human 0.

I was hoping like anything that when I got home today I wouldn't have to wash the dogs, AGAIN! Ha! Got home, no skunk in trap Dogs smell to high heaven.

We caught the neighbors grey cat in the have-a-heart trap.

The skunk wins.