Playing (with) Possum

Okay, MK, here is the possum story:

A week or so ago, I came into the barn in the evening, and switched on the light. Usually the “pile” of cats disbands and comes running toward me in a “welcome food lady!” gesture. This particular day, the cats disbanded per usual, but one of them waddled the opposite way of the door. Upon further investigation, it turned out to not be a cat, but to be a possum.

Possums are ugly. They are like rats, relatively bald with patchy, coarse hair, with a nasty bald, pink, somewhat scaly tail. Their faces are not necessarily nasty, but it’s hard to get past the tail.

This possum was about as large as a cat, and strangely, he was not deterred by my presence—even when I grabbed a pitchfork and attempted to “encourage” him to leave the barn.

I have been instructed to kill any possum that shows up on my property, as possums can be carriers of EPM, a debilitating disease of horses. However, I could not bring myself to destroy him—especially with a pitchfork—simply for showing up in the wrong place at the wrong time. I just wanted him to leave, as the last thing I wanted was for "him" to turn out to be "her" with her babies in tow. I am sure she won't hesitate to use her teeth on me if she feels as though I am threatening her babies...

He finally went behind the refigerator in my barn, and I didn’t see him after that. (That was not what I had planned to happen…)

I thought maybe I had scared him away, and he would leave the barn after I left.

That was not true, and I found that out a few days later when I came into the barn and found a bottle of nutritional supplement knocked to the ground and completely chewed up. I knew it was not a cat!

I happen to have some live traps (long story, another blog post) and decided to set a trap for him. Of course, I knew that as soon as I baited the traps, that cats would be caught in them right and left. So I fed the cats in a large dog carrier, and lured as many of them in as I could. There were three cats left that would not be duped. Fortunately, I had 4 traps. Nearly immediately after baiting the traps, two cats were lured and trapped. That left one cat and two traps.

I came into the barn the next morning, and the one cat was still wise enough not to be trapped. However, both of the remaining traps had been tripped! One was occupied by a stray tom cat that has been quite a nuisance lately, and the other trap contained Mr. Possum! Success!

I contemplated breaking in my new .22 rifle and using Mr. Possum for target practice, but I considered that I would rather have a shooting course first, and dispatch Mr. Possum humanely. So that suggestion was out. I ultimately decided to take him to a nearby county woods park and let him go.

The kids were so funny—they wanted to go with me and see him off, and the whole drive there, they talked to him in their funny baby talk. He was not impressed as he drooled and played dead. He woke right up when we let him go, and he shot out of the trap like a bat out of hell.

All’s well that ends well.

MK: I don’t believe that possums course, per say, unless they are the bait. However, some folks do eat possums.

Roasted Opossum (Possum)

1 opossum

1 chopped onion

1 tablespoon of bacon fat

1/4 teaspoon of Worcestershire sauce

1 cup of bread crumbs

1 hard boiled egg

1 teaspoon of salt

water


Rub opossum with salt and pepper. Brown onion in fat. Add opossum liver and cook until tender. Add bread crumbs, Worcestershire sauce, egg, salt, and water. Mix thoroughly and stuff opossum. Truss like a fowl. Put in a roasting pan with bacon across back and pour one quart of water in pan. Roast uncovered in moderate oven 350ºF. until tender (about 2 1/2 hours).