RYAN: HERO TO OPOSSUMS EVERYWHERE.
Midnight: As I was playing COD:4 and drinking Jack Daniels + Cherry Coke (usual weekend routine lately,) I had begun to notice an incessant rustling sound outside my window. My bedroom is located in the basement here, so my only window is at the top of the wall, near the ceiling. It is actually just underground, so it looks out at a semi-circle steel retainer (in the real-estate business this is known as a "well window.") It lets in a little daylight, enough to let me know it's time to wake up in the morning....but little else. Excepting tonight, that is....
I at first attributed the rustling to the cicadas. Or grasshoppers, locusts, whatever. There are all kinds of bugs around here, and each one makes it's own unique, loud, galling, irritating noise all night long. Usually I've got at least 2 cicadas in the window well, arguing over who-knows-what all night long.
After I'd finished my game, stepped out, then came back in from a cigarette, I noticed a scratching noise coming from the window well. All the cats were inside, to my knowlege, so I grabbed the streamlight and lit up the window well. I was met by the unmistakable gaze of a good ol' kentucky bred opossum.
He wasn't big, compared to many I'd seen, but this was to his disadvantage. He couldn't get out. He wasn't quite tall enough to stretch out and reach the top of the well, so as to pull himself out. The smooth steel sides of the window well offered no grip with which he could climb out. He was stuck.
Now I'm no hippie. I like animals...nature...whatever, but I also understand that humans are a part of nature just like anything else. If some asshole throws an empty coke can out in the forest...that's just as natural as a bird shitting from a tree....if you ask me. So I don't go out trying to save the forest or preserve an endangered species of beetle or protest against polluted spring waters.
But this guy was stuck...and if I didn't get him out he'd never get out. He'd keep me up all night rustling around until he died of exhaustion...and then I'd have a dead opossum to dispose of.
Anyway....
I snapped a couple of pictures while I tried to figure out how to get him out.
I brought a towel with me, thinking maybe I could drape the towel over the side and he'd climb out. I had forgotten that opossums...while they don't exactly "play dead"....do freeze up when faced with a potential threat or predator. As there is no animal control agency in shelby county (and it would be kind of redundant to call them about a stuck opossum anyway) I decided to use some good ol' American ingenuity
Here's my snare.
Made it out of some rope and what I think was a vacuum cleaner extension.
As the opossum was frozen still, it was surprisingly easy to slip the noose around it's neck. However, when I started to pull it out, it most definitely un-froze. I mean, it really un-froze. I ended up having to throw the whole ordeal; snare, screaming struggling opossum and all into the yard.
Luckily, the opossum swiftly broke free of the snare, and ran off into my mothers rose garden.
There he is, free as a bird. (He's in there somewhere.)
Now by no means was this some kind of life-altering experience, but it does illustrate the little adventures you get to have every day; the ones that make life worth living.
EDIT: Also, it's amazing to me how opossums can smell of death even when they're alive and well.
I at first attributed the rustling to the cicadas. Or grasshoppers, locusts, whatever. There are all kinds of bugs around here, and each one makes it's own unique, loud, galling, irritating noise all night long. Usually I've got at least 2 cicadas in the window well, arguing over who-knows-what all night long.
After I'd finished my game, stepped out, then came back in from a cigarette, I noticed a scratching noise coming from the window well. All the cats were inside, to my knowlege, so I grabbed the streamlight and lit up the window well. I was met by the unmistakable gaze of a good ol' kentucky bred opossum.
He wasn't big, compared to many I'd seen, but this was to his disadvantage. He couldn't get out. He wasn't quite tall enough to stretch out and reach the top of the well, so as to pull himself out. The smooth steel sides of the window well offered no grip with which he could climb out. He was stuck.
Now I'm no hippie. I like animals...nature...whatever, but I also understand that humans are a part of nature just like anything else. If some asshole throws an empty coke can out in the forest...that's just as natural as a bird shitting from a tree....if you ask me. So I don't go out trying to save the forest or preserve an endangered species of beetle or protest against polluted spring waters.
But this guy was stuck...and if I didn't get him out he'd never get out. He'd keep me up all night rustling around until he died of exhaustion...and then I'd have a dead opossum to dispose of.
Anyway....
I snapped a couple of pictures while I tried to figure out how to get him out.
I brought a towel with me, thinking maybe I could drape the towel over the side and he'd climb out. I had forgotten that opossums...while they don't exactly "play dead"....do freeze up when faced with a potential threat or predator. As there is no animal control agency in shelby county (and it would be kind of redundant to call them about a stuck opossum anyway) I decided to use some good ol' American ingenuity
Here's my snare.
Made it out of some rope and what I think was a vacuum cleaner extension.
As the opossum was frozen still, it was surprisingly easy to slip the noose around it's neck. However, when I started to pull it out, it most definitely un-froze. I mean, it really un-froze. I ended up having to throw the whole ordeal; snare, screaming struggling opossum and all into the yard.
Luckily, the opossum swiftly broke free of the snare, and ran off into my mothers rose garden.
There he is, free as a bird. (He's in there somewhere.)
Now by no means was this some kind of life-altering experience, but it does illustrate the little adventures you get to have every day; the ones that make life worth living.
EDIT: Also, it's amazing to me how opossums can smell of death even when they're alive and well.