Opossums: Finding Hansel and Gretel

Falling asleep without putting a hose to soak on a tree had me up early the next morning, of course Andrew, Parker and Charlie joined me for hose hauling. Found the end of the hose and hauled it back to the porch for a quick spray down.

Ducks. Enough said.

When I see Andrew with something hanging out of his mouth on a string. Thinking it was nasty trash or something dead. I say…

“Drop it!”

Andrew seems all to happy to spit it out, but he has to shake his head a bit before it drops to the ground.

I am about to see something nasty so I have the hose ready. As if.

Hansel

WOW! Not what I expected. Honestly for a split second my eyes focused on the giant head, well compared to a field mouse this was a big melon, I thought its half a rat, where’s the other half? Hope I didn’t step in it. By then I saw what I was looking at and bent down to pick it up. Okay I stuck my hand down there and it latched on for dear life. Startling. Being carried by the tail in a Great Dane’s Mouth seemed pretty traumatic so I didn’t know at the time this is normal. He was latching on because that is how he holds on to Mommy Opossum.  Did I just become Mommy Opossum? Uh Boy-eh!

I called to Jack who was just inside and I had left the door open for Gracie who he was steering outside just as I called.

“ Look what I found…”

“ I hope it not another animal…”

He always says that by the way, then he falls in love with them too.

This one we surely could not keep, it was wet, covered in dry grass, and only about 4 inches long ( not including tail) I didn’t even know if it was still nursing, but I knew it was illegal to keep them. The boys came out, we looked around for more. Nothing. I got a sweat towel from the gym stack and started drying off the little guy. We thought since Andrew found this one if there were any others he would lead us to them if we acted casual enough, so we wandered around in the yard a bit, but no go. Inside we went to call the wildlife center and see what we do about this little guy.

Before I got to phone, I remembered my camera was outside by the pond where I was fiddling with it last.

I took the little guy with me, grabbed the camera heading back to the porch and BAM! Nearly stepped on…

Gretel

Smaller, Wetter, and a little road rash to the face. Really?  Mommy Opossum part 2?  Isn’t it too soon for a sequel?

Thinking the dogs surely know where all these babies are being knocked off the mother. Thinking the worst…our dogs may have hurt a possum with babies. The search was on again. 

An hour passes, nothing. Finally calling the search off to get help for the little ones we found.

Nature Center>Local Wildlife Hotline>Wildlife Rehabitator

We arrive at the rehabitator’s house. A delightful woman who we were told is “ The Possum Queen” because all she does is work with possums. Kay S. saved 350 possums in 2010 alone.  Kay is a wellspring of information and loves possums, all animals really, but possums are do-gooders here is Kay’s list…

• they drive off snakes.
• are immune to most poisons and venoms. Scientist are developing vaccines from possum blood to protect us from consequences of snake/spider bites.
• they eat grubs, gardeners hate grubs, btw.
• they are shy. You can have them around without meeting one. Like having a pool guy except your pool guy eats nasty bugs you don’t want to know about.
• not aggressive. Will just run from you or fall over dead if you scare it bad enough. “Playing Possum”

We left Hansel and Gretel with Kay, but before we did we told her how sad we were to have to give them up, in fact the boys did not come with us because “it was so wrong to not be able to see them grow and release them back to the wild.” – Nathan Cates.  Kay, the answer girl, said we could take a class and become wildlife rehabitators, she would sponsor us. WOW! I called the boys and they were all for it.

Adventures Await!