Your Personal Homeschooling Lesson

July 30th, 2009 | Posted by Alison in Life

I got up this morning to do a little downward dog in the family room, only to discover a little outward skunk wandering around on the deck.

Holy Skunk

Take note that this picture was taken BEHIND the safety of a glass door.

I flew up the stairs to snag Ava out of bed. Wake my sleeping 5 year old on purpose? Am I insane? I knew she’d love it though and I didn’t want her to miss it. She’d have been up shortly anyway. At least that’s what I’m telling myself.

We got back downstairs to see there wasn’t just one skunk but TWO!

Two Skunks

And one very cautious cat.

Don't Move

It’s almost as if you can read her mind, no?

Oh good they left the lid off the sandbox again!

So I’ve recently been keeping a large compost bucket on the deck to help keep the fruit flies population to ZERO in the kitchen, but apparently this bright idea attracted a different sort of critter.

On to Plan B with the fruit fly issue.

We got to watch our little skunk friends wander around, and got an up close and personal account of one skunk stand on his hind legs to try his hand at getting the lid off the compost bucket – but he couldn’t do it.

Mom: 1, Skunk: 0

Skunks are generally nocturnal, as we’ve come to learn. Zak has spotted skunks in the compost pile in the back, but sometimes at dusk or in most cases, under the cover of complete darkness. They’re good for the compost and generally don’t come very near the house so we don’t mind them. It’s been a great opportunity for learning about skunks and the role they play in the food chain too.

Moving the compost bucket off the deck has just been added to my to do list this morning. Even mama got a little lesson today.

Once our morning excitement quieted down and the skunks moved on, I wrapped up my 40 total minutes of yoga and got to work on some green juice – and making more compost too.

Enjoyed on the deck, without skunks. Or cats.

Green Monster Black Cat

The other new critter in our life was pretty busy this morning too. I put the leaf in there last night just before bed!

Busy Little Dude

Yowza. Eric Carle isn’t joking around with The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

We’ve been learning about monarch butterflies here, among other sites. While of course we don’t know exactly how old our little buddy was when we found him, we now know that Monarch caterpillars take about two weeks to be considered full grown. Now you know.

Thus concludes our homeschooling lessons this morning! There’s the bell, class dismissed.


Please know that links to Amazon are affiliate links. It doesn’t change the price you pay, but if you buy something from Amazon after following one of the links in my posts, I earn a percentage based commission from Amazon as a part of their affiliate program. This is one of the ways I generate revenue from the posts that I write here. I promise that I only link to items that I truly endorse. You don’t ever have to buy anything, but if you do, thank you for supporting the site and the work I do here.


You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 Both comments and pings are currently closed.

13 Responses

  • Cindy says:

    but he was STILL HUNGRY!

    Eric Carle is a fav in our home! PLUS we are loving your caterpillar adventures!

    the SKUNKS and the kitty!!!! HYSTERICAL!

    what a fun morning (and educational too)

  • A says:

    That is sooooooo exciting!!! A skunk!?!?! When we lived in San Diego there were a lot of skunks at this time of year. My husband (BF at the time) use to carry around a broom. He called it his “Skunk Stick.” He would claim he would use it on a skunk if it tried to spray him! Whatever! We still refer to brooms as skunk sticks to this day!!
    -A

  • Jane/you-know-who says:

    Dave got a kick out of Minnie sitting there between your two visitors!

  • Haha…love the look on the kittie’s face. The skunks on the other hand don’t seem to mind his presence there at all. πŸ˜€

    The caterpillar is adorable! I used to have a fascination with them, and I remember when I was small and managed to “capture” one. Only I had no idea what to feed him, so it’s a good thing he managed to escape. πŸ˜‰

  • i would have crapped my pants had i saw those – way to turn it into a learning experience :)

    my fave book growing up: the very hungry caterpillar. good call.

  • Jennifer says:

    I think those skunks are cool!!! Yes, I would not want to be Minnie at that particular moment (haha) but they are just really neat animals. Stinky, but neat.

    That is one very hungry caterpillar. Wow. Now that book makes much more sense to me. (haha)

  • AZLinda says:

    Awww! What cute little critters πŸ˜€ Thank goodness your cat was a smart cookie and layed low…ha!

    That caterpiller is so vibrant and cute πŸ˜‰

    And thanks for the homeschool lesson for sure!

  • I had a pet skunk and they’re actually quite friendly once you get their scent glands removed! Actually, one of my favorite pets next to a dog πŸ˜‰

  • Elizabeth says:

    Your cat is smarter than my mom. Haha. She approached a mama skunk and her babies making kissing noises at them. The mama started hissing. Luckily, my mom didn’t get sprayed, but that’s too funny! I love the captions you put on your pictures.

  • I love the skunk pictures! And you are an awesome mom to wake up a sleeping child to share the moment… πŸ˜‰

    Love your caterpillar and Eric Carle’s book… I read that book SOOOO many times to the teenager when he was little. But somehow we lost it. So when I was pregnant with the toddler, the teenager actually bought it for his unborn brother…

  • there’s national geographic happening in your backyard!!! crazy!