a few weeks ago, while i was taking a shower, jake came running upstairs to tell me something very urgent. as i was a little busy, i asked if it could wait until i was dressed. (i actually find myself asking this question quite a lot. how is it that kids know when to bug you when you are the least available?)
anyway, he said, "no, mom i saw a hedgehog in the garage!"
"a hedgehog!? honey that was just grandma's cat's toy."
"MO-OM, it moved!!!"
"oh. i guess we have a rat. eww."
so i finish my shower, get dressed, and go investigate. i don't see too much evidence of an intruder i.e. droppings, nibbled food box corners, etc. but jake swears he saw something. so over the next few days we kind of keep an eye out for a little critter.
upon further investigation, we notice that the cats seem to be eating A LOT lately. we feel we are constantly refilling their food bowl, and their water dish is really dirty in the mornings. we are also starting to find droppings, yuck. we realize that our little rat friend is living in club med with free food and bath services. once when we returned home, we actually SAW something scramble away from the cat food as we pulled into the garage. now its on. we have got to catch this guy. we decide to take action. we borrow an electronic rat trap from the bousfields and set it up. nothing.
then we got a good look. while in the garage, brent found him, hanging onto a set of metal shelves. we didn't have a large rat, we had a small possum. jake was actually making a good guess by calling it a hedgehog. no wonder the trap hadn't worked, he was too big for it. now we had to figure out what to do. possums still freak me out, and remind me of large rats, but this was a BABY. and any baby animal, is well, a baby. so we pulled out all of the boxes where he had been living and got my mom's grabber tool and set it at the ready.
a few more days go by. its a saturday evening and i am putting some clothes in the dryer when i hear some scratching. i look over and low and behold, our baby house guest is climbing on the shelves again. i quietly call inside to mom and brent, while keeping an eye on the possum.
brent is able to gently get hold of him around the waist with the grabber, and put him in an empty trash barrel. from there, we carried him out and put him on the block wall where we often see larger members of his family. we told ourselves he could go find his mom and dad that way.
the soda can is for scale.
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
garage stowaway
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
just a wee bit smaller than the dead one that I found in my bed one morning, thanks to Meta-dog!
but even though yeah, it's a possum and they are indeed creepy and smelly.... still... AWWWWW! so cute!
ps. it's so cold and rainy today that I am wearing a winter coat. IN JULY!!
That is hilarious! Although it would creep me out too...it's a baby! How cute is that? You should be flattered though. After all, the little guy thought you had such an awesome family that he wanted to join. Sweet!
Rodents are not fun to deal with in your house - we had squirrels in our attic and birds in our dryer vent and front lamp post. Of course, you still feel bad when it's a baby. Once I caught a little tiny mole that ran through our basement in a trash can and I had no idea what to do with it. So I put it outside on the front porch. When I came back a couple hours later the sun had moved and was now glaring on the porch and the little mole was stiff and dead from the sun shining on it! What is the opposite of freezing to death, except not incinerating? Anyway, I felt bad. The possum is kind of cute though.
awwwwee he is adorable! :O)
Post a Comment