Only Jed Clampett Calls it Possum
My husband cringes whenever I say the word opossum, even though Mr. Webster agrees with me. Possum is slang, not that there's anything wrong with slang. Much of our language today evolved from slang. I just like to say opossum. Lately I've had a lot of cause to use the word.
First, I looked out our back door's window to see a large critter helping itself to our outdoor cats' food a couple weeks ago. Once he'd ambled off I brought the food inside and have been feeding the cats in smaller portions once a day so it doesn't sit out all night.
A couple of days later I told Haley, my eleven-year-old, to take the trash to the road for pickup the next morning. She came in saying, "No way, MOM, there's a huge RAT in there and it's looking at me!"
I said, "Are you sure it's a rat? A rat would run away."
I went outside to have a look, and there burrowed into the middle of a bag of trash, looking straight out at any passersby, was a huge opossum. Both of us were freaking out. The teenagers came out to have a look but didn't offer to help. We poked sticks at it. But it stayed frozen in there with its mouth open, its little sharp teeth quite visible from where I was. Even Willow and Jem came out for a peek. We prodded it with a stick but it remained unmoving.
I even called my neighbor's daughter to see if her dad was home--he has a shotgun. But he wasn't home so I was left to figure out what to do. I reasoned that possums were known for playing dead so odds were it wouldn't attack me.
SO...I hoisted the garbage barrel to the road. I must admit I was panicky the whole time I was carrying that thing. Then I put a heavy bag of trash on top of it--you know, the bags of trash you have when you clean out the fridge!
The next morning the trash bag was still there so I wasn't sure if he'd managed to burrow himself out, but the garbage man didn't jump around or anything when he came to take the trash away so the animal probably did get away. Then about a day later as I was driving to town I noticed a dead opossum on the highway in front of our house.
I thought that was the end of the story, until last Wednesday when I came home in the evening to see a large animal under the birdfeeder in our front yard. You guessed it, the opossum was back or at least a relative of the deceased varmint! We watched him eat black oil sunflower seeds off the ground, then my husband tried to get a photograph and it took off. Those suckers can run--slower than a rabbit but faster than a porcupine!
What was really funny was that very next night as I was driving through town I saw another one waddling onto the front lawn of a friend's house.
Those city folks have nothing on us for excitement!
Hugs,
Traci
First, I looked out our back door's window to see a large critter helping itself to our outdoor cats' food a couple weeks ago. Once he'd ambled off I brought the food inside and have been feeding the cats in smaller portions once a day so it doesn't sit out all night.
A couple of days later I told Haley, my eleven-year-old, to take the trash to the road for pickup the next morning. She came in saying, "No way, MOM, there's a huge RAT in there and it's looking at me!"
I said, "Are you sure it's a rat? A rat would run away."
I went outside to have a look, and there burrowed into the middle of a bag of trash, looking straight out at any passersby, was a huge opossum. Both of us were freaking out. The teenagers came out to have a look but didn't offer to help. We poked sticks at it. But it stayed frozen in there with its mouth open, its little sharp teeth quite visible from where I was. Even Willow and Jem came out for a peek. We prodded it with a stick but it remained unmoving.
I even called my neighbor's daughter to see if her dad was home--he has a shotgun. But he wasn't home so I was left to figure out what to do. I reasoned that possums were known for playing dead so odds were it wouldn't attack me.
SO...I hoisted the garbage barrel to the road. I must admit I was panicky the whole time I was carrying that thing. Then I put a heavy bag of trash on top of it--you know, the bags of trash you have when you clean out the fridge!
The next morning the trash bag was still there so I wasn't sure if he'd managed to burrow himself out, but the garbage man didn't jump around or anything when he came to take the trash away so the animal probably did get away. Then about a day later as I was driving to town I noticed a dead opossum on the highway in front of our house.
I thought that was the end of the story, until last Wednesday when I came home in the evening to see a large animal under the birdfeeder in our front yard. You guessed it, the opossum was back or at least a relative of the deceased varmint! We watched him eat black oil sunflower seeds off the ground, then my husband tried to get a photograph and it took off. Those suckers can run--slower than a rabbit but faster than a porcupine!
What was really funny was that very next night as I was driving through town I saw another one waddling onto the front lawn of a friend's house.
Those city folks have nothing on us for excitement!
Hugs,
Traci
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