Adventures with Wildlife

Ok, so, I've searched and searched and I cannot find on the web ANYWHERE a picture of an opossum as big as the one that I saw in my yard on New Year's Eve. I'm telling you, this thing was as big as a SMALL DOG and in no way cute or friendly looking, like many of the opossum pictures online. It looked pretty much exactly the way I remember the R.O.U.S. looking in The Princess Bride. Dude.

It made a horrible lumbering sound through the leaves and was totally undeterred by my stamping and yelling and generally freaking out.

I've read many varied accounts of the danger, or lack thereof, of opossums, so I don't really know what to think. My friend Michelle across the street has had to have opossums removed from her attic twice this year. Freaky deaky.

Two years ago, on Thanksgiving, I was forced to call Animal Control out because there was a ferret in our yard. The dogs found it (thank GOD I got there in time) and as I was shrieking for Thomas to PLEASE COME LOOK WHAT THEY FOUND, I realized that it was a ferret. I managed to lure it into a pet carrier, but then I didn't know what to do with it. I mean, I couldn't let it go, or they would eat it. But I certainly didn't need a ferret. We asked around to the neighbors, but they all claimed not to have lost a ferret, so we ended up having to have it removed. The Animal Control guy was NOT PLEASED to have come out on Thanksgiving to rid me of a harmless ferret.