Vermin!

For a while we had suspected that a raccoon had been eating the cats' food. Dirty dish, dirty water were the evidence in the morning, and the creature was no where to be found. One our last trip to Tractor Supply, the bought a live trap for $19.99 (oh yes, it was on sale), and we left the store thinking providence was on our side. That night we set the trap, baited it with cat food, and closed the doors to the barn, thinking we'd be doing well if the cats didn't get caught in it.

The next morning I went outside to feed the cats, making sure to stop by the woodpile to pick up a long stick in case our pest somehow managed to mistake. I slid open the barn door, peered inside, and was greeted by a hideous sight-a panting, hissing, fat, scruffy possum. EWWWW-it reminded me of the Rodents of Unusual Size from The Princess Bride.

And unfortunately, we didn't have a Westley on hand to slay the beast...

I couldn't move any closer to the mangy creature-instead I ran inside, screamed for my husband, and we both made the trip out to the barn. We took a towel to cover the vermin, and then set about deciding what to do with it.

Now, in hindsight the best thing would have been to dispatch of the "thing", but the closest implement we own to a weapon is a chef's knife (and that was not going to be used to slay the beast). So, we decided to set the possum free-with the false hope that it would happily return to the woods to forage for food. At dusk, we loaded up the pest in the back of the jeep, and drove to the southwest corner of the property, where we released it. He waddled off towards the woods, ambling his way through the woven wire fence.

Freedom!

We were called "NUTS" for releasing it by one neighbor, who told us we should call him to shoot it if it turned up again (and I'm sure we were called not so nice things to our faces), and our former landlord offered to shoot the next one, too. Well, two nights later the cat food was gone and the dish filled with dirty paw prints, so the trap came back out of storage. Apparently possums aren't very smart because the next morning, the same one was caught, back in the trap.

Usually I believe in second chances, but he was eating a hole in the cat food budget, and he was not going to be welcomed to the buffet any longer. Not to mention, a critter that ugly has to be carrying some nasty germs, since possums like to eat road kill.

Needless to say, we called the neighbor, and the vermin met its maker that evening. And so far we haven't had any non-felines enjoying the cat food.