SOMETHING ALIVE IS IN THERE! YUCK!
(Oposums are here to stay…Climate Change)
alan Skeoch
august 2018
“Yikes, there’s something alive in the watering can.”
“Never!”
“I touched fur…and it moved.”
“Whatever it is, looks dead to me…curled up ball of yucky fur.”
Watering can looked fine…needed it as we began summer clean-up. we had not touched the watering can all summer until this moment.
“It’s an opossum, playing dead…hoping we will go away. They do that.”
“Not playing dead now…looking right at us.”
“Cute”
“Cute! Never…ugly is better…looks like big rat with a bit of mange. Long stiletto nose with 50 sharp teeth…more teeth than any
other mammal.”
“Does it bite?”
“Not unless my finger got in its mouth”
“Nearly did when you picked up the can by the lid.”
“Touhed with my fingers…hair like a paint brush…long and sort of stiff.”
“Possums are a Sure sign of global warming.”
“Climate change?”
“Possums have been moving into Ontario for a couple of decades now. Lots of them around but not seen much as
they prowl around at night looking for food. They eat just about anything…dead animals, toads, rotten fruit, garbage, even snakes…but mostly
vegetarian diet.”
“She might have liked your finger.”
“Reckon so. How do you know that is female.”
“Looks like preparing for a birth…or two…or five…or more.”
“Did you know that Opossums (Possums) are the only marsupials in the Americas?”
“Do you mean she has babies in a pouch?”
“Yep, feeds them there…nipples in the pouch.”
“I read they carry youngsters on their backs when moving around.”
“True…five or six of them holing on…that’s after they leave the pouch of course.”
“103 different kinds of opossums…but those coming to Canada are the Virginia type.”
“Where did they evolve?”
“Evolve? You must believe in evolution.”
“I do…ever since reading Charles Darwin’s book, Origin of Species…
“i bet he was startled when HMS Beagle beached in South America…he wandered through the jungles …he must have met Opossums”
“They evolved in South America then moved north to North America when the continents jointed.
“Biologists think Opossums were around when the dinosaurs roamed the earth…they are survivors…when the asteroid hit the Gulf
of Mexico 65 million years ago, possums must have fed on dead dinosaurs…eat just
about anything…tolerate some weather extremes too.”
“Your guessing about that.”
“not reallly…mammals like you and me evolved from survivors of that horrific detonation…had to eat something.
“I found an Opossum in the fencerow last winter on a cold blustery day…alive…but odd to be wandering about in winter…maybe had rabies.
“Not likely…Opossums are resistant to rabies…one of the few mammals like that.”
“What a weird name ‘Opossum’…what does it mean?”
“Name was first recorded by John Smith and William Strachey way back around 1607 in the Jamestown colony.”
“Opossum sounds like a native North America word”
“It is…derives from Algonquin language meaning “white dog” or “dog like beast”…Take your pick.
“I like the word ‘beast’ best. Ugly as an old rubber boot with wet socks as a liner.”
“Now there’s an image that stretches the imagination.”
“The name Possum was picked up by Australians…lots of marsupials there…distantly related to kangaroos.”
“So what will we do with her?”
“Can’t stay here…dogs will go wild.”
‘Get a sack…big one.”
‘You hold the sack, I’ll try to shake her out.”
“Not falling…Only leaves coming…she’s holding on to something.”
“Possums are good at that…can hang on with legs, arms
and tail.”
“Shake the can…”
“I am…let me hit it with a hammer”
“the possum?”
“No, the watering can…that will make her let go…There…she’s in the sack.”
“now what?”
“Let her go somewhere…maybe a park down by the lake.”
“Do possums like parks?”
“Only if there are dead trees with holes.”
“Parks are quite clean…few dead trees. Where will she go?”
“I suspect she will find someone else’s watering can.”
“Maybe she’ll come back here…”
“Maybe.”
alan skeoch
august 2018
P.S> POSSUM TALK: USE CLICKS TO COMMUNICATE “click…clickers click…click,click, click…clikety click”
“What does that mean Alan?”
“Fortunately I took a minor course at the U. of T. in Possum language…”
“What does it mean?”
“Possum is saying “I’m coming home tonight, turn watering can on its side.”
Sent from my iPhone
