O.....possum

Dearest Marie.....I thought of you the whole time while this happened......

David was out with the missionaries tonight visiting families in our branch (church) as well as the doctor....and harassing opossums! Ok, before I tell you about these boys - and I'm putting my husband in this same category as these 19-20 year old missionaries- playing they did get much done tonight. David was very grateful for their help tonight. They even assisted in a blessing for Hyrum before going with David to take Hyrum to the Rapid Remedy just a few blocks from our house. After finding out that Hryum has an ear infection and coming back from Walgreen's to get medicine, the missionaries waited outside while David came in to tell me all that I needed to know about Hyrum. David opens the door outside and one the Elders informs him that there is an opossum in our trash can! Of course I had to run and get the camera! Just the other night I heard something outside and figured it was a dog or cat getting into our trash cans (unfortunately, we have all kinds of animals digging in our trash.....during the summer we get to add skunks and groundhogs to the mix) so I opened up the door to scare it away and noticed it was an opossum. He wasn't scared one bit and just kept going on digging in the trash he has knocked over. So I turned on the porch light hoping that would do the trick and....nothing. I was starting to think that the thing was blind and decided to bang on the side of our house to get it to run when it finally stopped and kind of hobbled away. It was so slow and didn't act like he was scared of me one bit! After he left I actually hoped he would come back so I could get a picture and send it to Marie (that is a whole other story of it's own!). He never did come back so I was on that camera in no time tonight to get the perfect picture.

I learned a lot about opossums tonight. This guy definitely did the "playing dead" thing that they are very well know for. For as many times as David and Elder Sattler messed with that trash can, the opossum didn't budge. Elder Sattler was hilarious with his being very willing to kill the thing for us! I, of course, was not going to have any of that!Here is Elder Sattler keeping his stance just in case that thing jumped out or something and Elder Morrison looking on from higher ground....I'm still not sure if he was getting a better view or keeping a safe distance :)

Ok Grandma, if you are reading this post you might not want to look at these coming up pictures.
Ok, so I wanted a picture-yes-but that was as close as I wanted any of us getting to the opossum. Of course, I imagined that thing jumping up and attacking us and the latter complication of rabies! But before I know it David is using a stick to poke the thing to get a better look at it's face! After trying to get him to leave the thing alone and to go back out with the missionaries to visit families in our branch I finally gave up. If he was going to mess around then at least I was going to get a good picture of the thing!

I'm looking at these pictures now and thinking of how stupid we are getting this close to the darn thing!

I finally convinced David to leave with the missionaries and sometime in between them leaving and David returning the opossum got out of the trash and left us. Hopefully, he had a big enough scare and won't come back.

I have to say that the nasty guy made me wonder though. I looked up opossum on the Internet and thought I'd share a few things with you.

-they are immune to most snake venom

- female opossum have pouches that they keep their little ones in until the young are weaned

-I always thought that opossums played dead to trick us and its predators but they actually can't help it! The "playing dead" response is actually involuntary and can actually take up to an hour for them to become conscious again.

-And my favorite fact is that of roadkill. Around here, if you see roadkill it is a good chance that it is an opossum. I find that humorous considering that I learned tonight that the reason they are roadkill is because of their diet and pretty much, laziness. They seek out trash cans and roadkill (easy food) and thus become roadkill themselves!

Now that you all are very educated on the likes of opossums; try having sweet dreams tonight after seeing that last picture I posted!