I'm making progress on a painting for my mom. She took a pic in Hawaii and wanted a painting of it. It's not a scene I'd choose, but I wanted to try some mountains. Still pretty rough. I was chatting w kleinbl00 yesterday about fan brushes. Fan brushes are like +3 for oil painting. Nothing puts paint on like a fan brush. Also, paints are of vastly different quality. I have two titanium whites, one Winston, and one cheapo one. The cheapo titanium white isn't even worth using. It's like adding Prego sauce instead of tomatoes. It is a limiting factor. I'm going to Norway next month to see mike and steve and others. We have an annual meeting at which we all must present something. I'm going to talk about prospects for sea level rise in the next 30 years. Also, we got three baby chicks. Our two older chickens are skeptical. I'm trying to catch a woodchuck, but caught a skunk instead. He was surprisingly cool about it, and was sleeping when I found him. I don't think skunks experience much stress.
I've encountered skunks in the wilderness a couple times. They stop, I stop. Their tails go up as if to say "is this going to be a thing?" and I back slowly away. Their tails go back down and we go about our business. Skunks are effectively immune to wise predators. Most dogs get sprayed once. Golden retrievers often get sprayed over and over. I lived next door to a 90lb doberman cross that got sprayed once, ate the skunk, developed a taste and spent the rest of its life seeking out skunks. That dog was evil.
I was sprayed one night while walking down an unlit trail. Only saw him momentarily just as he sprayed. I do not generally mind the smell of skunk but it was so ridiculously strong it made me nauseous. I had someone retrieve several gallons of tomato juice to soak in and I slept on the porch but still reeked for 2 days. My clothes fluttered in the wind for a month but did not recover so I threw them out along with my wallet. Good times.
When I release squirrels and woodchucks, they bolt once they can squeeze out. The skunk took his time. He eventually sauntered out, paused, then started looking about as he slowly meandered away. I would imagine their chill nature is part of their defense. Predators likely have an instinctive wariness of things that look like prey but don't act like prey. That might partially explain this bear sleeping thing: It makes me wonder if there's ever been a study regarding bear/cougar attacks on humans, and the clothes the people were wearing. You might look like nervous prey in natural colors/camouflage, whereas an 80's neon jacket might make you look like an enormous noxious caterpillar.
It's a dumb little grey and cream cat with a tail that's rolled up like a cinnamon roll. I'm glad neither cat has tried to kill it. One of my cats (probably not the little dumb one) kills a lot of rodents. I've seen them follow opossums around pretty peacefully if they are grown adults, so I suppose a skunk is just big enough to not try and kill. A cat of ours that passed last year used to kill one or two squirrels every year. He might have been game enough to go for it. Thank God the only bird they have ever killed was a Blue Jay. It was probably trying to harass them and got what was coming. We have had the shittiest dive bombing jerk Blue Jay's lording around the yard for a few years, kill another and I'll start giving out medals.
Thanks! Light Brahma. They are pretty mellow.