On 2016-07-28 10:12 AM, nancy young wrote:
> On 7/28/2016 9:42 AM, Dave Smith wrote:
>> On 2016-07-28 8:53 AM, nancy young wrote:
>
>>> Did not expect to find a possum. I was afraid to open the
>>> thing to let it out, would it attack me? I have a horror of
>>> having to get rabies shots. Then it was in a sunny spot and it
>>> was hot so I wanted to cover it.
>>>
>>> It was a mess. And I learned that they aren't always shy.
>
>> Opossums were all but unheard of around here until about 40 years ago.
>> One scared the bejeepers out of me when I opened up the barn after it
>> had been closed up all winter. I slid the door open and say the biggest
>> damned rat ever and if it had been a rat and was still alive it could
>> have jumped up and bit my head off. As it turned out. It was a dead
>> opossum.
>
> Are you sure? (laugh) Was it there the next day?

Oh yes I am sure. I disposed of the frozen corpse.


>
> I have a funny memory that is kind of a visual, but picture it.
> My dog was barking after I'd let her out at night. I don't let my
> dog just bark so I went to see what's up. On the fence was a
> possum, frozen still with two legs in the air. I guess we startled
> it when I let the dog out. It was so funny. I brought the dog in
> and kept checking back. Their muscles must freeze, it stayed in that
> position for a long time. Like it was walking along the top of the
> fence and was hit by a freeze ray.

I tried to explain the concept to my wife's friend but I don't think she
believed me.


>
>> I have only seen two live opossums here. It was rooting around under the
>> bird feeder and it put on a pretty good show when I approached it. The
>> second one was crossing the road while I was on my way home late one
>> night. The road was covered with fresh snow. I braked to let him cross.
>> He made it to the other lane. Unfortunately, when I hit the brakes the
>> back end of my pickup swung to the left. I missed him with the front
>> tires, but the back tire got him. I do see a lot of opossum road kill.
>
> I rarely see them run over. It's raccoons here, and lots of deer.
> Oposums are so slow, don't cross the road!

There is lots of racoon road kill here. The speed limit on our road
used to be higher and there used to be quite a few deer hit. There are
still lots of them hit along the highway. One problem is that deer tend
to travel in groups and drivers may see one crossing and think it is
safe to proceed and then they hit the next one crossing. They can really
do a number on a car. I know several people who totalled their cars
hitting deer. One guy did it twice.