We Give A Hoot, Mr. O'P

Yesterday afternoon, from my dark basement lair, I heard a ruckus out front. Juno was barking her fool head off. Then I heard her up on the porch, at various locations from kitchen to master bedroom. She really doesn't like Copper the neighbor dog, and is all big and bad and mouthy when he's walking around the yard, and she's up on the porch. So I figured it was just him, but the slight edge of hysteria in her bark made me suspicious.

I opened the front door and caught Juno in the act of baying, down at the end of the front porch, towards the goat-and-mini-pony pen. She stopped briefly to look at me guiltily, then turned and went back around, the long way, to her house. At that moment, I got a glimpse of Copper walking around the rose bush from the side yard. Uh huh. Darn that Sweet, Sweet Juno! False alarm. AND THEN something else caught my eye.

Right in front of the rose bush. In case you can't discern what it is...allow me the pleasure.

That's a possum, by cracky! And he ain't playin'! Maybe one of these days, the O'Possum family will get the memo that coming up on the porch to eat dry dog food at night is frowned upon by our resident fleabags.

Looks like Jack and his possum posse have been up to it again. This one was not as fresh as it might look. Since the dogs were so kind as to leave it right in front of where I sit on the porch pew every evening to administer their snack...I caught a whiff of it. Flies were using him for a landing strip. At least Jack hadn't partaken of him, to spoil his evening snack this time.

I sent Farmer H a text. "Your dogs are killers! It should be moved, as I got a whiff as I was investigating Juno's barking."

"Oh, I can get my tractor with the bucket, and move it when I get home."

Let the record show that Mrs. Hillbilly Mom does not see the necessity of a tractor, with the scoop loader thingy, for moving a simple deceased possum. It's not Paul Bunyan's possum, you know. I'd think a simple snow shovel and a 5-gallon bucket would suffice. But this is Farmer H country, where we have a special gadget for every task. I wouldn't be surprised if he told me he had a possum scoop attachment.

Anyhoo...after my walk, in time for the dogs' snack, I saw that the possum was gone. Since Farmer H has been known to chuck a dead possum down the main sinkhole, and threaten to throw one over a barbed-wire fence into Copper's Human Dad's field...I asked him what he did with it. He said he threw it on the other property (OURS) over by the barn.

That might explain why I heard an owl hooting over there.