Folks,

Dux:

Yes, we are accumulating quite a menagerie here by the river. Of course the opossum is to be found almost everywhere these days, not just in rural settings. I was aware of the possums only real defense being to 'play dead'. So far the tiny fellow has not shown any acting ability what-so-ever.

"Pogo" pounced upon and ate a careless bug that chanced to land in front of him last night. Today he has shown a definite interest in scrambled eggs. Adult possums will of course eat just about anything that doesn't try to bite them back. Lucky for us squeamish humans that we have these non-fastidious scavengers to clean up the carrion for us.

Some folk around here actually eat possum. They catch one and feed it a while to "clean it out" and then they butcher it. They claim it tastes like chicken. I will never know for sure. We once were stopped at a traffic light beside a favored Chinese Restaurant. While waiting I spied one of the cooks out in the parking lot fighting with a large possum. Finally he got it by the hind legs and "walked" it like a wheelbarrow into the rear entrance of the restaurant. We looked at each other with scrunched up faces and vowed never to eat there again.

The best case scenario would be to release the creature back into the wild just as we release all the fish that we catch. I do not know if this will be possible once he has gotten used to Lady T's home cooking.

While these critters do not seem to be carriers of diseases that are dangerous to humans, I understand that they can carry a disease that is quite dangerous to dogs. I'd therefore advise Olga to keep her distance.....