One down, dunno how many more to go.
My faithful readers have probably noticed I haven't posted much; I've explained before that my connection has slowed to a crawl, but before I have the telephone people out, I wanted to run a new line to my computer,just so they wouldn't have anything to complain about on my end.
A couple of weeks ago, I decided I'd run the new line under the house so I got all the stuff together and made my way through the crawl space at the side of my hovel house. I hadn't gone very far -scootching along on my back, the floor joists just a few inches above my face -when I heard a strange noise, almost a cross between a growl and a hiss. I slowly turned my head and came face-to-face with one pissed off possum.
The details are a bit fuzzy, but I do remember trying to jerk myself upright, but there wasn't enough room for me to raise my head very much and I banged my noggin on one of the beams. Thank goodness I had a thick sock cap on to protect my head from the nasty, damp dirt (it had been raining) or I might have done some serious damage to my otherwise thick skull. I'm not for sure how long I was out - couldn't have been too long - but when I woke up there was a possum chewing on my pants leg.
I made my way out from under the house and after a couple of days recuperation from what I'm sure was a fairly good concussion, I found a trap my nephew had given me and set it up by the entrance to the crawl space. (it took me a while to figure out the simple mechanism, and I'm sure the blow to my head had something to do with my cognitive skills)
It took a few tries to get the trap working properly, but I found out what possums like to eat; wieners, chicken bones, lunch meat, etc. They don't seem to like bananas or strawberries though. As I said, I wasn't setting the trap properly and the bait was stolen several times (except for the fruit, they left that alone)
I found this little guy in the trap the next morning and he wasn't pleased at all to be cooped up. Still angry over nearly knocking myself out, I thought I might just shoot the little bugger, but decided I'd better just take him out to the country and let him go. (Still, I secretly hoped a coyote would give him a slow, painful death.)
It rained all the next day and I didn't release him as planned. Checking on him (and feeding it a couple of weiners)I saw it looked miserable and cold. I found an old towel, covered the cage and brought it on the porch. (and now need to clean the possum poop off the porch and will do so as soon as it dries up) I drove just past the city limits the next day and released it near a tree-filled gully. I'm sure it was as glad to get away from me as I was from it.
I've got a video I took just before I released it and will post it as soon as I get my connection sorted out. This photo took about five minutes+ to upload, so there's no way a video would be feasible at this time.
Not sure how many more are under my house, but I'm bringing a baseball bat the next time I venture under there. I'll probably wind up knocking myself out with it if I get scared again.
(There you go, Colleen! Stay tuned for the video!)
October 9, 2010
This Possum's Not Playing
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5 comments:
You can knock yourself out for some possums and they still don't appreciate you.
Any more possum updates? We rarely see them up here in NH, too cold in the winter I guess.
Caught another, Barb, let it go in same place. Been setting the trap, but the bait keeps disappearing. I've tied it (part of a weenie) to the trapping mechanism so it will HAVE to spring when it gets pulled. It might just be mice getting it, too light to trip the trap door, I dunno.
Har Har, Annie. My stinkin' head still hurts. It seems to have affected my thinking, made me a bit more stupid and I can't really spare the intelligence.
Thanks to you both for posting, sorry about the captcha thing, hasn't really worked all that good, some spam has got through. I'll take it off here as soon as I post this.
Hi Mike , this post made me laugh , have not been reading your blog lately , nothing personal of course I just got lazy and not on the pc as much as before ,your pissed of possom line cracked me up and just imagining the whole scene in my head of you under the house etc catching possoms cheered me up no end .
I had not really heard of a possom before coming to America , seen them move around a bit in the dark in our yard at night , think when we leave food for the wild cat we have possoms are eating it .
I can't wait to see your vid too.
As you've noticed, I haven't been updating this much. It take so long for pages to load, I haven't had much interest in getting online. About all I do is post to my Facebook acct. nearly every day, mainly just to let my big sister know I'm all right (so she won't call the police to come check on me)
I'll post the vid as soon as I get the new line ran (run?) WM didn't have the little connector I need, but I know I have one somewhere around here. The connection has slowed even more, and is down to below dialup speed because I'm sure there's some exposed connection on the telephone pole and it's been raining and making it worse.
Thanks for posting!
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