Sharing an old post again......because it's funny.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Opossum Wrangling
Yeah, sounds like something that would happen in KS doesn't it!
I went to bed about 12:45 last night. 5 minutes later my little girls (2 mini-daschunds) start barking like crazy. I get up to let them out. They run out the back door barking like there is obviously something in the yard that doesn't belong there.
I use a flashlight to look out all the windows on that side of the house. I can't see anything but I hear sounds that tell me they, and our golden retriever, are cornering some sort of animal.
So, what do you do in these circumstances? Do you wake up the husband who has a business trip in the morning and needs his sleep? No, you wake up your 24 yr old daughter and tell her to grab a flashlight. Why? Cause she loves crap like this just like I do. haha
So we go out the back door. Heather is about 4 feet in front of me. I tell her to slow down, she doesn't know what's out there. Could be rabid. Right about that time our golden retriever comes happily running (FAST) out of the dark towards us with a very large live, but playing opossum, opossum in her mouth. I'm closest to the door so I run inside. I hold the door cracked. Heather, stuck outside now, jumps fast and high right up on top of the hot tub. At this point she and I are both alternately screaming and laughing hysterically. Screaming for the golden to drop the opossum and screaming at the little dogs to get in the house.
Mollie does drop the offending creature. Right on the patio. I still have the back door cracked, Heather is still on top of the hot tub. I'm still trying to get both of the little dogs in. Emmie actually dragged the opossum a foot across the patio. The creature was bigger than she was. So, finally we get both little dogs in. I've got Mollie by the collar and Heather is going to try to get the opossum out of the backyard. Mind you, it IS alive. It's only playing dead. It was breathing and it moved several times.
So, Heather grabs a small plastic dustpan and tries to scoop up the opossum......doesn't' work.....So then she tries....wait. I should mention that I'm laughing my ass off right about now....So then she's crouched over this opossum who is half in her dustpan and proceeds to try to push it farther into the dustpan with the TINY flashlight she is holding....she stops, looks up at me and says "they don't bite do they?". OMG I seriously thought I was going to pee my pants. It was all I could do to get out a squeeky "yes" without laughing too hard at her.
Heather gets it in the dustpan and asks me what to do with it. I tell her to toss it over the fence. We'll deal with it on the side of the house in the morning. Well she goes to toss it over and the handle on the plastic dustpan breaks and the opossum and the dustpan fall at her feet. Mind you, I'm laughing more because I can't really see what happened and I'm imagining that she didn't get it high enough to go over the fence but just smacked it INTO the fence. In that half second I had flashbacks of Peter from Family Guy trying to get a dead frog out of a window with a shoe box.....something you'd have to have seen to understand.
Ok, opossum is on the opposite side of the yard which is fine because Mollie, the golden, can't go to that side because of an invisible fence. We'll deal with it in the morning.
This morning I take a gander (that's what we say in KS) around the backyard. He's gone. I'm sure once he realized he was safe from the dogs and the chick poking him with the flashlight, he hightailed it back over the fence from whence he came. or something like that.
OK so this was about 20-30 minutes going on. The screaming, the laughing hysterically, more of both....we come in the back door and here comes the husband wanting to know what's going on. Heather and I were laughing like loons. Most fun I've had at almost 2 a.m. in a VERY long time!!
Chris
I went to bed about 12:45 last night. 5 minutes later my little girls (2 mini-daschunds) start barking like crazy. I get up to let them out. They run out the back door barking like there is obviously something in the yard that doesn't belong there.
I use a flashlight to look out all the windows on that side of the house. I can't see anything but I hear sounds that tell me they, and our golden retriever, are cornering some sort of animal.
So, what do you do in these circumstances? Do you wake up the husband who has a business trip in the morning and needs his sleep? No, you wake up your 24 yr old daughter and tell her to grab a flashlight. Why? Cause she loves crap like this just like I do. haha
So we go out the back door. Heather is about 4 feet in front of me. I tell her to slow down, she doesn't know what's out there. Could be rabid. Right about that time our golden retriever comes happily running (FAST) out of the dark towards us with a very large live, but playing opossum, opossum in her mouth. I'm closest to the door so I run inside. I hold the door cracked. Heather, stuck outside now, jumps fast and high right up on top of the hot tub. At this point she and I are both alternately screaming and laughing hysterically. Screaming for the golden to drop the opossum and screaming at the little dogs to get in the house.
Mollie does drop the offending creature. Right on the patio. I still have the back door cracked, Heather is still on top of the hot tub. I'm still trying to get both of the little dogs in. Emmie actually dragged the opossum a foot across the patio. The creature was bigger than she was. So, finally we get both little dogs in. I've got Mollie by the collar and Heather is going to try to get the opossum out of the backyard. Mind you, it IS alive. It's only playing dead. It was breathing and it moved several times.
So, Heather grabs a small plastic dustpan and tries to scoop up the opossum......doesn't' work.....So then she tries....wait. I should mention that I'm laughing my ass off right about now....So then she's crouched over this opossum who is half in her dustpan and proceeds to try to push it farther into the dustpan with the TINY flashlight she is holding....she stops, looks up at me and says "they don't bite do they?". OMG I seriously thought I was going to pee my pants. It was all I could do to get out a squeeky "yes" without laughing too hard at her.
Heather gets it in the dustpan and asks me what to do with it. I tell her to toss it over the fence. We'll deal with it on the side of the house in the morning. Well she goes to toss it over and the handle on the plastic dustpan breaks and the opossum and the dustpan fall at her feet. Mind you, I'm laughing more because I can't really see what happened and I'm imagining that she didn't get it high enough to go over the fence but just smacked it INTO the fence. In that half second I had flashbacks of Peter from Family Guy trying to get a dead frog out of a window with a shoe box.....something you'd have to have seen to understand.
Ok, opossum is on the opposite side of the yard which is fine because Mollie, the golden, can't go to that side because of an invisible fence. We'll deal with it in the morning.
This morning I take a gander (that's what we say in KS) around the backyard. He's gone. I'm sure once he realized he was safe from the dogs and the chick poking him with the flashlight, he hightailed it back over the fence from whence he came. or something like that.
OK so this was about 20-30 minutes going on. The screaming, the laughing hysterically, more of both....we come in the back door and here comes the husband wanting to know what's going on. Heather and I were laughing like loons. Most fun I've had at almost 2 a.m. in a VERY long time!!
Chris
