A Weekend Visitor

It was a quiet Friday evening. The girls were asleep. My boyfriend and I were snuggled on the couch enjoying an episode of Prison Break together... when all of a sudden we hear an awful screeching noise. No, it was more like screaming... like a bok bok bokking screaming. "The chickens!" We ran out into the back yard to find feathers still floating down from the sky. There had been a fight, or a chase, or something. The chickens were running around in circles all over the yard bokking up a storm.

That's when Aaron discovered the monster who started it all...

An opossum! Aaron chased it up a tree. Look at those gangly fingers and claws! And does he have a runny nose? Or maybe, Henrietta the chicken, got in a good kick!

Uh, those teeth are kind of scary.

Aaron hit it with a stick trying to chase it away, but then he felt terrible about hurting the thing, so he said it would be alright to just leave him up in the tree. I believe these were his exact words:

"Yeah, I really scared him pretty good. He won't be coming down tonight. So don't worry about it. I totally scared it!"

What do I know? Okay, let's get back to more important things like Prison Break! And then we went to bed. And then we heard the screaming chickens again. And that would be when Aaron ran outside, found the possum (that's what we call them here in the South) in the chicken coop, the chickens not in the coop but running around... and he shuts the cage. The possum is now trapped in the chicken coop.

First thing the next morning (Saturday), I'm on the phone trying to get a hold of Pest Control. Apparently no one ever has pest problems over the weekend because they don't come back to work until Monday. At 1:00! So we just had ourselves a little weekend visitor for the next couple of days, at the chickens expense.

So while my husband went back to work on a Monday, saving people's eyeballs. I had someone come over... Meet, My Hero!

"Uh, yup. You got a possum alright."

This is his strong serious face. "Come on guy. Just mosey on out of that warm soft bed of yours and into my hard metal cage."

That didn't work. He then proceeded to be really cool and use that stick leash thing to noose it. I got to help by holding the roof of the coop up. I might have been a little scared, therefore I almost dropped the camera while I was holding the lid with one hand and clicking the photo button with the other. I didn't get the shot.

But his face pretty much looked like this the whole time.

Thank you mister I-don't-know-your-name! You have saved our lives! Thank you, thank you, thank you.

I thought this sort of run in with wild life, such as possums, only happened to these kind of folks. Or wait, maybe these guys just eat possums.