My house has the main part separated from the garage by a 24-foot breezeway. A typical day includes roughly 20 cats of various sizes lounging about on the breezeway. The garage has an abundance of clutter which provides a sanctuary for mother cats with newborn kittens. As the kittens grow and become more adventurous they begin to join the others in the breezeway. But, as soon as a human enters the breezeway they leap into action and tear through the garage doorwy to hide where they know it is safe. This gets humorous at times when I pass through the garage on the way to the breezeway. The half-grown kittens hear my approach, spring into action, and try to scoot through the doorway at the same time I am trying to pass through it going in the opposite direction. Sometimes they run into my legs. Sometimes they zigzag at the last second and go around or between my legs. Sometimes they sort of leap into the air and look for a different safe place desperately.
A few nights ago I was returning from an evening meeting about 10:00 p.m. As I neared the garage door I could hear the scampering of a half-grown kitten headed my way and began to prepare for the normal collision. At the last second I realized it was not a kitten. It was a full grown opossum. I only had time to sort of hop up on one leg in the doorway while bending the other leg rearwards quickly. The possum sort of bounced off the top of my toes as it shot into the clutter to safety. I may have said some words that one shouldn't use during a televised political debate.
Where's that danged cameraman when you need him. It would have been a great video for an episode of America's Funniest Videos.
Years ago I use to raise dairy goats. It was fun and the milk was good. Summer barbeques were even better...
I kept the good "sweet feed" for the fresh does in a galvanized trash can with a tight fitting lid. It was a chore to keep the kids and bucks away from the sweet feed, it smelled so good. I also had a number of cats that popped up (I do believe cats spontaneously generate). While I don't think they ate much of the sweet feed, there was one or two that always seemed to be able to get into the can. I really enjoyed seeing the can lid loose and sneaking up on a cat that was in the feed. They have such a terrorized look on their face when you catch them.
Early one morning I flipped the light on in the feed shed and saw the lid half off. I quietly snuck over and flipped the lid off to terrorize the cat....it was a possum. I thought they feigned death when they got scared. This thing snarled at me and barred its teeth...I almost soiled my Carhartts. Both of us retreated quickly to rethink the situation. The possum finally left on its own accord.
