This spring, I had been warned that I had a raccoon issue, but channeling the myth of the ostrich, I apparently stuck my head in the sand just a bit too long.
What were those prints on my patio? And where were my fish going?
These are questions perhaps uncommonly posed by many suburbanites, but for this nature lover and former Scout leader, it was just another day on “the farmette.”
I had chased away the great blue herons over the years, and this summer there were a couple of hawks in the yard. The newest fish, I opined, may have been weak or diseased. I chalked up their diminishing numbers to biology, and the winged forces of nature.
But then the pond walls began falling down, and I could not explain it away.
My patient pond guy was happy for the work, but I remained skeptical about the cause. Until one evening, I saw them: a fat, lumbering pair of masked intruders.
They skidded into the pond, appeared on the other side, and off they went—fully hydrated, I suppose, and perhaps fed, as well.
Proven wrong, I texted my pond guy. Who doesn’t like hearing that they were right, after all. In a world gone cold and hard, a simple admission like this might turn someone’s day around.
So I organized the Have-a-heart trapper, and we waited.
One evening, while I was sitting on the porch, the fat granddaddy of all raccoons tried to join me—but when I told him to Get Outta Here, not only did he comply, but apparently he spread the word.
What have I learned now?
Well, a lot about possums. Because they’re all around me, it seems, and I don’t mind at all.
I’ve learned that playing possum is an involuntary response, by the way, brought on by stress.
It’s a wonder any of us is operational these days.
But at least, in nature, we rest. ©
