L’ombre et Lumiere - Deux

First there was one.  Then there were two.  Then one again.  Then none.  And somewhere between the second one, and none – the golf balls got rearranged.

       

I’ve already reported on our first black and white visitor whose arrival just preceded Mars and my culinary L’ombre et Lumiere adventure.  For several days he (we assume) returned to the scene of his original trespass and dutifully trundled away when one or both of us announced our approaching presence with slammed car doors, honking horns, or clapping hands.

      

 It was becoming a normal part of our lives until we returned at dusk from an evening of Carillon music and conversation at our most local college to discover that (a) he did not react as expected to our loudly announced arrival, and (b) there was a second black and white ball of fur slinking through the flowerbed that guards our family room door and normal entrance.

       

Mars and I loudened our requests for the newly formed couple to leave – or at least step aside for a minute or so.  She (we assume) exited stage left into the thicker shrubbery of our quince bush.  And he (again assumed) trundled to the spot on our walkway immediately in front of the portal to which we were seeking admittance – whereat he looked toward us as if he was also expecting entry.  After being clapped at and verbally threatened by the two of us he reluctantly sidled into the bed of phlox abutting the living space whose doorway we desperately sought to traverse.

       

We could see the moonlit pink flowers atop their tall stalks swaying in sequence – tracing his earth-bound movements.  Moving rapidly and carefully watching his telltale trail Mars and I slipped quietly into our house and closed the doors behind us.

       

For the next few dusks only one (who knew which) of the skunks appeared beneath our bird feeders. 

       

Then one morning I found two golf balls, which Mars apparently dropped while restocking her bag, placed in locations on our front lawn that could not be explained by Mars’ activities.  She immediately gathered them up and placed them on the periphery of the aforementioned flowerbed hoping to see if our uninvited bi-colored weasels happen to play their own version of the ancient Scottish game. 

       

And a few houses up the street we smelled, then saw, a crushed black and white and red road kill carcass.  Since that time neither skunk has been seen in our yard.  Nor have the golf balls moved.

       

Last evening we went out, and returned home at just about the same time as our previous doorway confrontation with the furry duo.   There was no sign of any skunks  –and the golf balls were still in situ.

       

It looks likely that the roadside corpse was “our skunk”.  Still I wondered about the second one.  “Did we interrupt an unsuccessful first date?”  “Did our unwelcome presence contribute to the failed romance?”  Or, worst case, was “he” killed while out foraging for food for “her” who is resting back at the den “in a family way”?  And where is that hiding place?

       

As Mars and I learned in our college philosophy classes: not all questions have black and white answers; and you cannot prove a negative.

       

So what we saw, or didn’t see at 9:05 last night means nothing.  And as with so many other things, only time will tell.