I had my own "close encounter" with one of those, many years ago, at a neighbor's house. I was doing some yardwork for my neighbor, and my dog was along, and she kept sniffing all around a little workshop/closet (her late husband's gun workshop, now just a storage area), so I let her in and she zeroes in on a corner of the room where there's some shelves under the counter. I hear some strange noise coming from there, pull her out of the way, and poke my head in there with a flashlight, and come face-to-face with a mouthful of angry possum teeth! I jump back out of there, and get my dad's help in extracting the beast (her did this a lot, apparently), and we wrangle it into a bucket with lid, and I carry him to the nearby semi-wild park.
I've encountered many more since then, usually ones that my current dogs have cornered and/or rolled in their rush to play with their new "friend"! Last one we saw was doing a "high-wire act" on the power line, heading from the house to a tree next to the power pole, just last month.
We had one get into a garbage can here at home once. One of my kids came to me and said, "Uh...Daddy? The garbage can is moving." I just carried the whole can out back of the house and laid it down so he could get out. I've seen so many of these things I don't think anything about it anymore. Back when I was a trapper, I caught lots of them, which was a drag because their hides aren't worth enough to bother skinning them.
Oh, yeah, to finish the story of that first possum: we figure he squeezed under the door to the shop when he was skinnier, found the cat food my neighbor stored in there, found it comfortably out of the weather, and got too fat to escape out the same way, until we found him. My dog got a lot of praise for finding him, otherwise we wouldn't have figured out how the cat food was disappearing.
It isn't like I haven't seen Mr. Possum before, but that would seriously freak me out. So, how did you get to read the meter? Or was he kind enough to tap out the numbers with his paws?
If you enlarge the photo, you can see part of the meter just to the right of his head, so I could still see it easily. I took several photos, and in some of them I got a pretty good shot of the meter, but I chose this one because this is the one he looked angriest in. I made some hissing noises to make him open his mouth and look really p*ssed.
When those guys get easy access to trash, they can grow BIG. We had a monster that used to hang out around the loading dock for a restaurant I used to work at.
I had my own "close encounter" with one of those, many years ago, at a neighbor's house. I was doing some yardwork for my neighbor, and my dog was along, and she kept sniffing all around a little workshop/closet (her late husband's gun workshop, now just a storage area), so I let her in and she zeroes in on a corner of the room where there's some shelves under the counter. I hear some strange noise coming from there, pull her out of the way, and poke my head in there with a flashlight, and come face-to-face with a mouthful of angry possum teeth! I jump back out of there, and get my dad's help in extracting the beast (her did this a lot, apparently), and we wrangle it into a bucket with lid, and I carry him to the nearby semi-wild park.
ReplyDeleteI've encountered many more since then, usually ones that my current dogs have cornered and/or rolled in their rush to play with their new "friend"! Last one we saw was doing a "high-wire act" on the power line, heading from the house to a tree next to the power pole, just last month.
We had one get into a garbage can here at home once. One of my kids came to me and said, "Uh...Daddy? The garbage can is moving." I just carried the whole can out back of the house and laid it down so he could get out. I've seen so many of these things I don't think anything about it anymore. Back when I was a trapper, I caught lots of them, which was a drag because their hides aren't worth enough to bother skinning them.
DeleteOh, yeah, to finish the story of that first possum: we figure he squeezed under the door to the shop when he was skinnier, found the cat food my neighbor stored in there, found it comfortably out of the weather, and got too fat to escape out the same way, until we found him. My dog got a lot of praise for finding him, otherwise we wouldn't have figured out how the cat food was disappearing.
ReplyDeleteIt isn't like I haven't seen Mr. Possum before, but that would seriously freak me out. So, how did you get to read the meter? Or was he kind enough to tap out the numbers with his paws?
ReplyDeleteIf you enlarge the photo, you can see part of the meter just to the right of his head, so I could still see it easily. I took several photos, and in some of them I got a pretty good shot of the meter, but I chose this one because this is the one he looked angriest in. I made some hissing noises to make him open his mouth and look really p*ssed.
DeleteUgly litter buggers, aren't they?
ReplyDeleteWe don't have opossums in my state.
When those guys get easy access to trash, they can grow BIG. We had a monster that used to hang out around the loading dock for a restaurant I used to work at.
ReplyDeleteNice surprise.
ReplyDelete