Black and white

I occasionally toss out onto the patio food that’s past its prime, or that turned out to be unappealing, or that I just don’t want to eat. For example, a couple of months ago I bought a box of lime shortbread cookies at Trader Joe that tasted of chemicals. After eating at least ten of them (they’re about an inch in diameter), I decided I did not want to spend my calories on powdered sugar coated off-tasting things, so I’ve been flicking a handful of them outside every couple of days.

I know they’re bad because even the squirrels aren’t interested in them. Yesterday I watched as one took half a cookie, then jumped up to the bird bath to wash the taste out of his mouth, sniffed a couple of others and then left the back yard. Turns out that all I needed to repel squirrels were these cookies.

Fish skin falls into the “don’t want to eat” category. Tuesday evening, I peeled the skin off my roasted salmon fillet and chucked it outside; it’s probably irresponsible, but I figure that a passing racoon might like it. Later, around 2200, I heard critter rustling sounds on the patio, so I slipped downstairs and turned on the light to see the trash panda.

Well, blow me if it wasn’t a skunk snuffling about. It eventually got to the salmon, picked it up and took it a few feet away to munch.

No, I do not have video, because I didn’t have my mobile on me and I did not want to call attention to myself. Unlike our fearless family chihuahua-X Buffy, for whom we had to buy tomato juice by the tanker truck, I do not fancy duking it out with a skunk. (Even though the sudden flooding of light didn’t seem to bother it; I still wasn’t taking chances.)

So my wildlife neighborhood has become even more diverse.

Maybe the skunk will like the cookies.