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Adventures on Mill Road

Chapter 36 – Bats, Cats, Possums and Skunks

The fun part about living on the edge of rural, just beyond suburban, is the variety of wildlife we have here that comes by the house.  We have bats, cats, vultures, deer, skunks, foxes and possums.  Just to name the ones I can think of off the top of my head.

The vultures congregate in the yard 2 doors over.  There is a small stream, trees around the edges and a lot open space to land in.  Plus there is a compost pile that they seem to be fascinated with.  We have fox around the corner.  I haven’t seen any directly in our backyard, but they are in the neighborhood. And the deer migrate through the backyard, especially in the fall and winter.  There is only one fence to block thier progress.

Bats. One night on of the kitties came in squeeking.  Well, it turns out it wasn’t the cat that was squeeking, it was the bat that it had caught.  He has a small hole in his wings but other wise was unharmed – as far as we could tell. Since it was alive we took it away from the kids and put it in a box with a small saucer of water.  Do bats drink water? Who know.  But Binky got water. Yes, the bat got a name when he went into the box. David put Binky’s box on the top self in a wardrobe to keep him away from the kitties.  The next day we went to get Binky from his box and put him outside in a tree.  Well, he wasn’t in his box. He had climbed out of the box and was hanging on one of the coats in the wardrobe.  So David put Binky out in a tree.  We kept an eye on him until he flew away.

We know all about Edna the possum.  Who spent a night in the bathroom.  But Florence the Skunk came for a visit night before last.  We put food out for the cats that live on the porch.  Earlier in the evening I had smelt her go by… but when David put food out for the cats she jointed in.  The weird thing is, the cats didn’t seem to mind and they all ate together.  She was pretty docile, but then again, we didn’t give her a reason to get her tail up.   And that’s a little update on our wild life.

Chapter 14

There’s a What? Where?!?

About 2 weeks ago, my Beloved came to bed late after working hard.  Normally he doesn’t wake me up, but on this evening he gentle shook me and told me, “if you get up to go to the bathroom, make sure you close the door.”

I opened one bleary eye and looked at the clock.  It read 3:25.  That would be AM.  And being not totally awake my verbal skills just weren’t up to par so all I could do was ask, “why.”  “There’s a possum in the bathroom,” he replied.  “A whut?” “A possum.” “What?”  My Beloved calmly replied, “There’s a possum in the bathroom eating the cat food.  I heard it up on the roof, there must be a breach in the eves.  Just close the door when you go to the bathroom.”

Me, “What?  Did it come in through the hole the bats were coming in?”  Him, “I don’t know.  I’ll check.”  So at 3:30 am my Beloved tromped downstairs, and then tromped to the basement.  The next thing I hear is SLAM! SLAM!!  If you don’t slam our basement door it doesn’t close right.  TROMP, TROMP, TROMP.

My Beloved – “I guess I didn’t close the door to the basement and the possum came in there.”  Now my brain is fully awake and I’m thinking “Ok, what ELSE came in?”  But, I said, “OK.”  Beloved, “But it’s closed now.  The possum is cute.”  Me, “No, we can’t keep it!”  Him, “I’ll take it out in the morning.”  Me, “Ok.”  Him, “Remember to close the door to the bathroom so the possum doesn’t escape.”  Me, “There’s a possum in the bathroom.”

Possum, “crunch, crunch, crunch.”  That’s the best fed possum in our back yard.