Jump to content

The Possum Incident


donkpow

Recommended Posts

I'll normally go outside just before bed to check to see what the cats want to do. They'll hang around if they are hungry or want to come in. Last night, I was standing out there with the garage door open waiting to see what the princess wanted to do and a possum comes around the corner of the house and bolts through the open garage door. I try to get ahead of him but he gets under one of the big tool boxes and hunkers down.

Possums don't interact the way most other animals do. They tend not to get into fights and aren't easily coaxed by other means. They generally mind their own business, nose to the ground, grubbing for food. Well, I tried to prod the little feller out but he just buried himself deep under the box. So I turned the lights out and waited for an hour and a half for him to come out. Nope, he's a possum and he's gonna act like one. Mind you, with a pre-dawn wake-up call I'm sitting in the driveway with the cat waiting for a possum to wander out of the garage. Fogettaboutit. I put some cat food out for him, closed the garage door, and turned in for the night expecting the worst in the morning.

So I get up with the alarm and immediately open the garage door. He runs right out. I take a quick look around and find nothing amiss. Apparently, he hid for most of the night, came out and found the cat food, and waited for the door to open.

                                                                                                        Richard-Widmark-The-Bedford-Incident-196

  • Heart 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, Road Runner said:

I could not go to bed knowing there was a wild animal in my house or garage.  :(

I know. A raccoon would have worried me. If I could have reached the possum, I would have put on some welder's gloves and dragged him out of there. I was worried he would climb into the storage areas and make a home.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I love this story on so many levels! Ha!

We don't have possums around here; but I do feed a neighborhood cat, and occasionally a skunk meanders into the garage. I make sure Skunkie is outdoors before closing up for the night. :D 

Of course I round up our two cats before closing up...

  • Heart 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, smudge said:

I love this story on so many levels! Ha!

We don't have possums around here; but I do feed a neighborhood cat, and occasionally a skunk meanders into the garage. I make sure Skunkie is outdoors before closing up for the night. :D 

Of course I round up our two cats before closing up...

I have some great fun when the skunks get in the yard. The skunk's challenge involves thumping the ground and facing his foe. I always try to start something by thumping the ground  and making myself look big. :)

  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Our garage isn't attached to the house. It has all kind of critters living in it. The groundhog that has teased me all summer was sitting in the front yard holding a big ripe tomato it stole from the garden. I took a shot at it from the front window of my house and completely missed it. It picked up the tomato and ran in the garage. The feral cats are always having kittens in our garage. Feral kittens don't have a very high survival rate in my neighborhood. I never find dead ones though so something must be eating them. I've found four foot long snake skins on my work bench. I need to clean out my garage.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, Longjohn said:

Our garage isn't attached to the house. It has all kind of critters living in it. The groundhog that has teased me all summer was sitting in the front yard holding a big ripe tomato it stole from the garden. I took a shot at it from the front window of my house and completely missed it. It picked up the tomato and ran in the garage. The feral cats are always having kittens in our garage. Feral kittens don't have a very high survival rate in my neighborhood. I never find dead ones though so something must be eating them. I've found four foot long snake skins on my work bench. I need to clean out my garage.

Or give it up. :lol:

  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

36 minutes ago, RalphWaldoMooseworth said:

You screw with a skunk>  Are you daft?

Skunks get a bad rap for their spray. They only spray when they are startled or under severe threat. I have read that spraying causes them great pain. When I ride the river trail at night, I see a bunch of skunks. When they care about my presence, they run away. My fear would be to hit one and get sprayed. Here at the house, they tear up the turf and destroy the sweet corn when they can get at it. Protecting the corn from skunks has proven to be more expensive than protecting the corn from raccoons.

  • Heart 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 hours ago, RalphWaldoMooseworth said:

Better get TK to check any electric cords in the garage.  Ask Parsley aboot his possum incident.

Ha! When I read the thread title it reminded me of the story.

 

Several years back I had a deep freeze out in the garage with the remnants of a side of beef in it.  Not a whole lot left, some ground beef, some roasts, but easily a couple hundred worth of beef in the deep freeze.  I noticed a smell coming from the deep freeze one day.  Rotting meat.  Never good (especially in Indiana summers).  The temp had to be 150 in that garage.   

Sure enough, the deep freeze was off.  Dammit.  I wretch my my way through emptying it out.  Bleach it out and keep it open to dry out until I can stomach the smell enough to troubleshoot why it's not working.  But the smell never went away.  In fact, it got worse.  

Then I noticed the tail.  It was sticking out of the back of the deep freeze.  A small possum was in the back of my freezer.  A quick poke with, I believe,  a pedal wrench?.....nothing.  The guy didn't budge.  I tried to grab him with a pair of leather gloves.  Well let's just say that he was not going to come out intact.  I had an old steel bike fork hanging on the wall.  I grabbed it and managed to fish most of him out of the small opening without leaving too much behind.  He was very "soupy".  

Apparently he had bitten a wire and it got him.  This tripped either the GFI outlet or the breaker (can't remember).  As soon as I cleaned it out and reset the outlet and breaker everything was back to normal.  

Still using that deep freeze today, though it has been relocated to the basement.

  • Heart 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

And my coon story....

We have 2 outside cats.  Flash and Bootsie.  I used to feed them in the garage.  There used to be a big grey tom cat that would come eat every now and then.  I was mostly ok with this.  I kept a bag of cat food in a clear plastic bin up on top of the beer fridge (which was right next to the possum freezer).  
One night I went out to grab a brew and noticed that grey cat was up in the bin on top of the fridge, eating cat food out of the new, previously unopened bag.  This was not cool.  I reached up to grab grey cat and get him out of my garage.  I got about 6"
 away from hand to fur contact and realized it was not grey cat, it was a coon.  He was looking at me like "WTF?"

I got my ass out of the garage to regroup and then chased the coon out with a broom a few min later.  

  • Heart 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 hours ago, donkpow said:

Skunks get a bad rap for their spray. They only spray when they are startled or under severe threat. I have read that spraying causes them great pain. When I ride the river trail at night, I see a bunch of skunks. When they care about my presence, they run away. My fear would be to hit one and get sprayed. Here at the house, they tear up the turf and destroy the sweet corn when they can get at it. Protecting the corn from skunks has proven to be more expensive than protecting the corn from raccoons.

Yup, I agree. When Skunkie is in the garage, I only know he's there because the cats are both intently staring in the same direction. I can't smell the skunk. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Our raccoons and skunks are noisy.  They usually come in family groups and the young uns are always tussling and growling at each other and wrestling.  The skunks usually bring an odor to the bedroom windows in the summer.  Again, I don't know if it's the little one's learning to keep it in their pants or the old man leaking.  Possum just sneak in for a few bites when no one else is around.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...