And A Possum in a Fig Tree

Tricia called me out from the kitchen the other night, saying, "Kyle, Big Boy is barking his head off at something in the fig tree."  It was late.  It was dark.  It seemed like an adventure, so I was out the door real quick.  Big Boy was indeed circling the fig tree.  As I walked up, something darted out and I immediately thought, "Skunk!"

Had it been a skunk, I would have been googling remedies to get the skunk smell out, because the critter ran right past me with Big Boy in hot pursuit.  The Big White Dog grabbed the varmint with his jaws and gave it a vigorous shake and then set it down.  It was then that I identified the critter as a possum.

Jaws of Death

Big Boy did some sort of celebratory pacing and then commenced to shaking the possum back and forth, back and forth and back and forth while clamping down with his teeth.  Cats have nine lives.  I don't think possums do.  This possum's ticket was punched.

Possums have a little trick they do called, "playing possum."  They pretend like they are dead until the predator leaves.  I watched him closely and pushed around on him with a stick.  He was not playing possum.

Dead as a doornail

I called Animal Rescue and they showed up, performed CPR, inserted an IV and the possum is healing up in a critical care unit.  Nope.  None of that happened at all.  I had Benjamin dig a hole in the garden between a couple of rows and we composted the dead possum.  He'll decompose and amend the soil with rich 'essence of possum' that will undoubtedly make the garden vegetables planted over him to grow with vigor.  Hopefully it won't impart possum flavor to those vegetables!

Another bonus is that this possum won't be able to kill any of my chickens.  We've certainly had losses to our hens in the past caused by possums.  Fortunately a dead, composted possum can't kill chickens.  The good guys won this battle this time - thanks to Big Boy.  Big Boy digs big craters in our yard.  He also has been known to enjoy eating a chicken or two himself.  He also likes to go out on patrols in our neighborhood and I've had to apologize to a neighbor who drove over to tell me that Big Boy had marked his territory by peeing on his nice chrome Harley-Davidson. Big Boy is also known as Bad Boy.  But I tip my hat to Big Boy for breaking his pattern and doing a good thing in killing the possum.  Keep up the good work, Big Boy.