Barn Cleaning

I was working in the barn one evening when Beta popped in. He wandered around and poked his head in one of the stalls.

picture of the door of a horse stall in a barn

He asked me “Is that a cat?” Knowing we do not have a cat, I peeked in the stall.

picture of the door of a horse stall in a barn

It was not a cat.

It was a skunk.

It was odd that it was just lying there, with all the noise we had been making. I figured it was either dead or very groggy. So we threw a small clump of dirt at it, just to get its attention and see if it really was dead. If it were any other animal, we would have been more brave about going closer and prodding it with a stick of something.

But not a skunk.

Beta had the barn door open, and we were ready to bolt outside if the skunk moved. But he did not react to anything, so I assumed it was dead. Maybe it froze, maybe it starved – whatever killed it left it intact.

picture of a dead skunk on a shovel

Some of you may have noticed a good ol’ floppy disk on the shovel with the skunk. Why is there a disk there? Good question. I blame the skunk. My guess is he rummaged through some of the old computer equipment stored in the barn and for some reason chose this one disk to steal.

I didn’t notice the disk at first. When one is shoveling up a dead skunk, one pays attention to the skunk and only the skunk. There were other things he had piled around him – part of a tarp and some paper. So he was obviously gathering things. The disk was next to him when I scooped him up in the shovel but I didn’t know I scooped up the disk too.

picture of a dead skunk on a shovel

I just tossed the skunk a ways into the woods beside the barn. Downwind, of course. Now that it’s above freezing, dead things will decompose faster.

And if you were in the market for an older version of Allen-Bradley’s Panelbuilder software, I’m sorry to ruin your hopes, as that disk is no longer available.

You are therefore to make a distinction between the clean animal and the unclean, and between the unclean bird and the clean; and you shall not make yourselves detestable by animal or by bird or by anything that creeps on the ground, which I have separated for you as unclean.

Leviticus 20:25

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This little article thingy was written by Some Guy sometime around 6:56 am and has been carefully placed in the Life category.

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