Back when we had Pupsie, I could see her during the day, as I sat at HIPPIE at the kitchen table, and she sprawled in the sun on the corner of the back porch. For a dog who wouldn't let us pet her, she sure liked to be on the side of the house where we were.
Sometimes at night, I would hear Pupsie scratching at the door mat outside the kitchen door. I'd sweet-talk her for a bit, as I did when she laid down in the sun. All for naught, though. And sometimes, I'd yell at her NO, like when I would see her in daytime walk around to the water bowl, and hear her digging the water out.
Funny how after Pupsie disappeared, I'd sometimes still hear the scratching outside the kitchen door at night. Looking out, I saw nothing but darkness. I've never heard or seen a pet after they've gone over the rainbow bridge to a big farm upstate. But that doesn't mean it can't happen for some people. Pupsie is not a likely candidate for me, anyway. That would have been my Sweet, Sweet Juno if such an incident was meant for me to detect.
Anyhoo... Farmer H has since put up two solar lights with motion detectors. Not for any specific reason, other than he got a deal on a bunch of them. They come on as darkness falls, and light up brighter if Farmer H comes to the kitchen door after dark. Or when my little Jack makes his nightly trip to the water bowl between 8:00-8:30. I see the first light brighten, then the second. I look out the kitchen window and see my Jack, his tail in the air, calmly strolling around the kitchen nook. The lights dim again, and brighten in reverse order as he walks back to the side porch and down to lie in the hole he's got under SilverRedO.
A couple days after Lucky disappeared, Jack went to the water bowl, and startled me by coming back from the side porch area. I think I wrote about it. Like he was doing laps around the porch, tracking something, rather than turning around and going back to his hole. I had hoped then that maybe he had gotten a scent of Lucky.
Anyhoo... for the past couple weeks, I've been randomly hearing that scratching at the kitchen door mat again. I figured that maybe Jack, being lonely, had come up to lie outside the door where I was. And was scratching and turning on the mat before settling down. The lights would go on, but I didn't see Jack walking to the water. This was usually later, around 10:00.
Tuesday night at 7:02, the solar lights brightened. I looked out. With the time change, it was actually 8:02 as a dog would feel the time. Jack's water routine. Huh. Jack was walking around in the corner of the porch where Pupsie used to have her nap. Sniffing. Then he started toward me, as if to go around for his drink. The second light brightened.
THAT WASN'T JACK!
It was something smaller, with a pointy tail. It ambled not towards the kitchen nook and water bowl, but towards Juno's old dog house, right outside the kitchen door! I lost sight of it.
I THINK IT WAS A POSSUM!
I hollered to Farmer H that I thought we had a possum on the porch. He came to the kitchen in his tighty whities, and went through the laundry room to look out. I heard Jack start barking out by the garage. The lights dimmed. Farmer H hollered, "GET 'IM, JACK!" A couple of times.
I don't know what happened. We didn't see anything. But I have a sneaking suspicion that all summer I have been talking to a POSSUM outside the kitchen door!!!
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