As we talk, Darla is looking through the sliding glass door at her back porch, and she tells me that a couple of skunks are out there eating spilled bird seed. And not just any two skunks. No, these are two particular skunks, immediately recognizable, at least to Darla. She would know these individuals anywhere. At home or out on the street. In a police line-up. She probably has names for them. One of the skunks, she tells me, has an unusual amount of white fur in its coat.

I can’t decide whether wild animals and strays gravitate to Darla, or if it’s just that she notices and then caters to them, while most people go about their daily routine, oblivious to the creatures at the edges of their lives.

I googled “skunks white fur” and found an article by Ariel Schaub on “Pets on Mom.com.”

“… now and then a skunk is born with far more white fur than usual,” according to Schaub. “Most skunks have a variegated fur pattern of spots or stripes. … A skunk will very rarely have fur that is white with a slight purplish hue. This is a lavender skunk. It is very rare to find an all-white skunk not bred in captivity.”

I won’t be surprised to learn, during one of our interminable phone conversations, that there is a lavender skunk out on Darla’s back porch, calmly eating spilled sunflower seeds and the suet Darla puts out for woodpeckers.

I figure it’s only a matter of time. It will probably be a female with a name like Violet, or maybe simply Lavender.

At various times Darla has been visited by feral cats, a fox, even a young cougar. For years she watched over generations of a family of ruby-throated hummingbirds who shared a genetic mutation that turned their throat feathers orange instead of red. She noted their arrival in the spring and departure in the fall. Between arrival and departure, she named each one and fed them specially prepared sugar water, similar to simple syrup, free of bacteria and artificial color. One winter Darla moved and thought she would lose them, but, miracle of miracles, when the Orange Throats returned the following spring they found her in her new home.

Her last move, however, was to a different town, and the distance was too great. Darla and the Orange Throat family lost track of each other.

Looking out at the skunks on her porch, Darla was reminded of a story. Years ago, while out on a walk, her rottweiler, Zenta, cornered a skunk — in this case not a skunk Darla happened to know personally –and Zenta got sprayed.

Was Zenta upset by this? Not in the least. Apparently, she was not close enough to the skunk to be sprayed directly in the eyes, but close enough to receive the full effect of the skunky smell.

“She was smiling!” Darla told me.

Zenta was one of those dogs who actually grin, and on this occasion she was very pleased with herself. Dogs are known for their fragrance preferences, so different from ours. They like nothing better than to roll around on a dead squirrel or a recently manured field.

Unfortunately, Darla had to put Zenta in the car to get her home. Since her husband was working a 40-hour shift and wasn’t there to help, it was up to Darla to bathe the dog in tomato juice, the accepted de-skunking shampoo of the day.

Zenta, however, had other ideas, and had no intention of getting into the bathtub. Rottweilers are big dogs, and Zenta weighed 130 pounds.

“She just pressed herself onto the floor,” Darla said. “There was no way I could move her.”

After repeated attempts to wrestle the rottweiler into the tub, Darla gave up. She called her husband.

“He asked me what I was going to do,” Darla said. “I told him I was going to use the tomato juice to make bloody Marys and keep drinking until I didn’t mind the smell anymore.”

According to current thinking on the subject, tomato juice doesn’t neutralize skunk odor anyway. Darla has a new recipe in case it happens again.

Have a good week.

(Martha Allen lives in Keene Valley. She has been writing for the News for more than 20 years.)