O-O-O-Opossum

There are a few things in this world that scare me: someone jumping out at me, my kids running out toward the street, and....animals where they shouldn't be. Let me explain. Just a few weeks ago we had a "problem" with snakes. Rich had run over a few while mowing and told me to keep an eye out for them in the yard. So I was vigilant and looked at every stick as if it were about to slither away, didn't let the kids in the grass without shoes on, and didn't venture out too far away from the house. The problem with this whole scenerio is that we live on eight acres of wooded land that has wildlife all over it. So as you can well imagine I happened to spot a snake slithering across our stone wall in the front of the house one evening. Needless to say, I did a hopping shrieking dance across the driveway. Thank the Lord Rich had just came home from work. (Early I might say, yes God does take care of us in every circumstance.) My knight in shining armor, or khaki slacks as the case may be, pulled out his 410 shotgun and shot that snake! My hero saved his damsal in distress. And what distress I was in!

Okay, now fast forward several weeks to today. After having a wonderful visit at my mom's house this evening, Anna, Micah and I returned home to get ready for bed. Before we headed inside I decided to go check on Rippy and give him some fresh food. Micah didn't have his shoes on so I carried him on one hip and carried the dog food in the other hand. I entered Rippy's pen and set down his food, then proceeded to peek into his feeder to check and see how much food was left in there. As I did this I caught a glimpse of little white feet that did not belong in a dog food dish. I let out a scream, tried to keep from dropping Micah and ran out of the pen back to the house. We decided to wait for Daddy to get home and that Rippy could sleep in the garage tonight. When Rich got home we told him the whole story and my brave husband said that we needed to get it out. So out into the dark we went, me carrying a shovel and Rich with the shotgun. I didn't want to be in charge of the gun, I might have shot the wrong target. So I was in charge of knocking over the feeder and jumping up on top of the dog house. I did this with excellent skill. My brave knight kicked the feeder out the pen door and proceeded to open the door so that the oppossum could escape. I know that these close encounters with the animal kind are to be expected when you live in thier natural habitat, but I definately prefer the four beautiful deer we saw this morning over the oppossum and snakes anyday!