It all started a week or so ago. I couldn't sleep one week night and I just started thinking to myself "A possum box would be fun". I could find out what they eat, fruit or something and maybe leave it in the box. But that would be impractical, because it would probably attract vermin, koel, and other non native species. Maybe even some marauding cat. So I let the idea drop.
Later that night I heard something rabbiting around outside. Maybe a cat, or something had got into the outside shed. Its own stupid fault. There's a few half empty paint times out there and it might come to grief. Then I heard something drop and I was trying to fathom whether the noise of the dropped object was outside one of the windows or inside. This was shortly followed by the sound of little feet rushing across a wooden floor. On goes the bedlight and I see this greyish furry object race across the floor. I live in a granny flat, which is basically a fairly large open plan cabin, with adjoining bathroom. Girly yell!!! So I jumped out of bed as it dashed into the bathroom. There's an outside door in the bathroom and I thought "perfect" and I leant over to open the door, and she must have thought that was too easy because she rushed through my legs. No problem, I went back out into the room, closed the bathroom door, and saw her hiding under a nest of drawers. I moved towards her with a plastic bag (unsure why) and she rushed past and nipped one of the fingers of my hand which was hanging at bite level (for possums).
So I opened my front glass doors, we did this none touching dance around the room, I gestured fluidly towards the door, and in a moment of marsupial lucidity she was out the door and up one of the palm trees in the back yard. This was about 3.30am and I had to rise at 5.00 to go to work.
Now each night, I check the windows to make sure they're open enough to let a breeze in, but nothing larger.
The back yard also has this dirty great oak tree, and the previous owners in a fit of originality called the place "Oak Cottage". There's a ladder up the tree which leads to an open platform, a kind of basic tree house, which my brother built for my nephew when he was younger. You know where I'm going with this, don't you.
Said tree house is the occasional home for Blossom, and she sometimes jumps, either from my tin roof onto the tree-house, or vice versa. Eastbound is fine. Westbound sounds like a jet landing on an aircraft carrier when you're trying to sleep one deck below the flight deck during night time "touch and go" exercises.
I saw Blossom in said treehouse tonight, when I came home from choir, but I don't think she'll be there too long, because it's just starting to rain, again, in Sydney.
Anyway, the windows have been checked. Sleep well all!
All about possums
