Missourah story of the night

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Missourah story of the night:

So it's midnight. I've just finished watching the season finale of SNL up at my parent's house and am walking down to the guest house where I've been living for the past year. The GH is about a rugby pitch's length down the hill from my PH. It's dark, but the sky is beautiful with the full moon among the clouds.

I usually walk down in the dark, without a flashlight. Two of our cats usually accompany me down to the GH because I let them in and fed them during the winter and now they're used to it. Sometimes the dogs accompany me, too, and they take off on a late night stroll through the woods after they've walked me down.

I like having the dogs and cats with me, especially this time of year, as they kind of deter most... other things away. I figure if there's a snake in my path, for example, that the dogs and/or cats will sense it first before I step on the damn thing.

So tonight I'm walking home. My porch light is on, beetles and moths surrounding it and slamming themselves into the side of the house. My cats are in front of me as we pass by my porch. My porch is like head high when you walk beside it on your way to the porch steps.

As we approached the small porch, both cats kind of jumped. My first thought was that there was a snake. But I was looking and didn't see one in the porch light. I looked back at the cats, and they were looking up at the porch. And there, sitting three feet away from me, at eye level, was a small rodent.

By its size, it looked like a large rat. But it just sat there. I was clearly freaked out and ran to my back door, went in, and ran to my front door to look out onto my porch. It was the size and shape of a rat, from what I could see. And I don't mean a kangaroo rat with a cute gerbil face, this thing was pointy.

But it was strange that it was just sitting there. And then it started to climb the tree next to my porch. At that point, Chree cat smelled it and started climbing the tree after the rodent, but it moved, very slowly, up the tree past the porch tin roof.

Rats don't usually sit there when a human and two cats and one dog are nearby. The only other thing that looks like a rat is a baby possum. If it was a baby opossum, that would explain why it didn't know what to do around humans and domestic animals.

But I couldn't decide which was worse, a rat or a baby possum. Mostly because possums are born in litters and run in packs until they're grown, so one baby possum means there could be a family of possums.

At any rate, I called my mom to tell her the drama, and she came down with a huge flashlight. I had a flashlight and a broom. I figured it was still in the tree since I hadn't heard it hit the tin roof above the porch.

Sure enough, it was up the tree, perched on a small branch, and it is definitely a baby possum. Size of a big rat and a pointy face, like a rat, but a smaller, skinnier tail, and big ears. I think it's lost and scared and separated from its family because our dogs didn't seem to smell or hear any family of possums nearby. I kind of feel sorry for it, but not sorry enough to do anything about it, except hope it stays in the tree and, if it comes down, is chased off by the cats and dogs.

Because possums are quite possibly the ugliest and scariest animals around. They're big, mean, ugly, and fairly stupid. And by that I mean, they're dead all over the roads.

Ha, a Missourah joke: Why did the chicken cross the road? To show the possum that it could be done!

HOLY SHIT IT JUST GOT OUT OF THE TREE AND HIT MY TIN ROOF, I CAN HEAR IT SCRATCHING IT'S WAY ACROSS AND I JUST HEARD A THUMP. HOLY CRAP IS IT ON MY PORCH? BRB.

Okay, it's not on the porch. I can only hope that the thump was it hitting the ground and promptly running far far into the woods. I threw one of the cats out onto the porch to investigate, but she seems bored and is wondering why I won't let her back into the house.

So, that's my Ozark drama of the evening. I'm sure you're all enthralled. The lesson is this: no matter how cute a baby possum, baby kangaroo rat, baby mouse, or even a baby squirrel is, it's going to grow up to be rodent and a pest and it should be dispatched of as quickly as possible.

On another, happier, note, our kittens are absolutely adorable. They're finally getting old enough to start wrestling with each other and doing the sideways hop run.

My Chree cat is also pregnant, which kind of sucks because I'll be in China when she has her kittens, and she's very unsocialable and only likes me. No one else can even get close to her, let alone hold her and pick her up. She only comes when I call her, and now I'm going to abandon her before she gives birth. I'm afraid she'll go have them in the woods or won't let Mom get near her and her kittens. Actually, I think she'll have them in the old chicken house as she spends most of her day sleeping on a bale of hay under the eve of the house. I think I'm going to make her a nest over there before I leave so she has a warm, safe, dry place to have her kittens. Somewhere accessible to Mom, but far away enough from the house that she doesn't feel threatened by everyone when I'm not here.

Our current litter of kittens lives in the wood pile next to my PH. We visit them every day and play with them and they're very socialable kittens. They will never hiss at us or run away, and that's how we like to raise them. Acutally, we haven't had kittens in a loooong time. And now we're going to have two litters.

Okay, it is definitely time for a shower and bed. Or a shower and a few chapters of the fun bridget jones-esque book I'm reading, Little Lady Agency.

Oh, Missourah. There is a chorus of tree frogs for the lone whippoorwill that is singing outside.

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