Possum Country Part 1

There is a gargantuan possum living nearby. I saw her a couple weeks ago loping between out and our neighbor's fence - giant, gray, rat tail, pointed snout. It was 5:30 in the afternoon, and I thought what in the world is a rodent doing out in the -- and then I realized, she must be full of a litter of rodents and looking for food. Great! A pregnant possum. A week later, I saw her again, in the daylight, and I rattled my tin pie pans at her -- because, and I hate to digress here, but I am fighting a neverending, never winning battle with grackles - and the pie pans are currently my only defense. Unfortunately, now all birds hate me, and as a result I have pie pans nearby the door. Anyhoo - I rattle at Mama Possum who quickens her pace - just a little - behind the shed and I think HOLY NIGHT when I don't see her emerge from the other side!!!!!!

I step outside.

And, that's about when I see fur and little feet sticking out from behind a tree above my shed. Holy night, she climbed the tree, I think - but only to about 6-7 feet, because probably all the way up she was cursing the rodent that knocked her up and now she has to haul her entire family up a tree - just far enough to be just barely out of reach from this nutty yacking mammal who is making a frigging racket with her pie pans. I walk under our apple tree - still giving her plenty of distance, but am now in line with her, and she peers around the tree at me. We stare at each other, sizing one another up. She is totally going to win this battle, I know that, because what am I going to do? Rattle my pie pans at her? And, she is probably thinking that she has won this battle, because what is this chick gonna do, rattle her pie pans at the tree?? So, we are both right. But something interesting occurs in the process.

She stares at me, gravity probably working against her and pulling on her and she is probably cursing me for the needless climbing - but she holds her tree and peers around at me. She doesn't hiss (in my opinion there are 2 animals in this world who have the right to hiss - cats and snakes, and Canada geese and possums are freaks of nature in this way), she doesn't show me her sharpy teeth. She just looks at me willing me and my pans to go away, and I stare back at her masked face, willing her to go away, and thinking - her face is kind of cute, she has a nice whitish mask on her relatively small face. Mind you - I HATE POSSUM - they creep me out. But, I leave her, as I have no other choice, and as I watch her from my kitchen window, she, slow as molasses, climbs down the tree and continues to mosey onward.