Thursday, December 28, 2006

Back to normal...wait, what is normal?

Yup, our house is pretty much back to normal. The place is a mess, with presents and packaging (not normal, but the mess usually is...), the kids are back to fighting, they are complaining about being bored...(they just got all this wonderful stuff!!).

So...I do what any sane mother would do, send them out to play, right? Uh-huh, out to the backyard the 3 older kids go with the dog. I am on the phone with my brother, who is helping me redo my computer, and the kids come running, screaming into the house. Here is the conversation that ensues...

Mr. Hockey: THERE IS AN ANIMAL IN THE SHED (SAID IN CAPS, JUST LIKE THIS!!)
Me: What kind of animal? Squirrel (we have been known to have a few of these), raccon, cat?
Princess: IT IS BIG!!
Cutie Pie (in tears and freaked out crying) IT ALMOST GOT MY CAT...IT ALMOST GOT MY CAT (she got a kitten doll for her birthday)
Princess: YEAH, IT WAS ON A PIECE OF WOOD IN THE SHED AND WE SAW THE ANIMAL AND CUTIE PIE SCREAMED AND CRIED AND I RAN IN AND PULLED THE PIECE OF WOOD OUT TO GET THE CAT (notice there is no punctuation, this is done on purpose!!)
Cutie Pie: (still in tears) THE ANIMAL ALMOST GOT MY CAT...THE ANIMAL ALMOST GOT MY CAT

I am still on the phone with my brother, who is now laughing...there is always something interesting going on here. I get off the phone with him and tell Cutie Pie to stay in the house with Pooky, and I head out to the backyard to see what this animal is.

So, the 3 of us and the dog are all standing outside the shed looking in. It is getting dark outside and we cant see so well. We come to the conclusion that we have a bunny in our shed and it looked like it was stuck. So we came into the house and got a few carrots and a flashlight so we could see it better.

Back out we go, but now we had to bring Pooky, cause you know everyone has to go. So, I shine the light into the shed and look as cosely as I can at this 'rabbit'. Yup, I don't think it was a rabbit anymore. It actually looked dead. So, what do we do now? We throw carrots at it and run like mad away from the shed, shine the light back in, it didn't move. It must be dead. I contemplate getting a hockey stick and poking at it to see what is was...nah, we decided to let hubby do it instead.

So, hubby walks in the door and we send him out right away to check out this 'animal'. He decided to poke it and apparently it is NOT dead!! It is very much alive and shot its head up, open its jaws and hissed at him. I wasn't there, but the kids said that he pushed them out of the way to get away from the shed. He decided that it was a possum...I didn't know that we had those in these parts of Ontario.

So, the kids come in and we look up possum on the computer. We check out some pictures and some information about them. The kids both said that it was the same face as in the picture. Now, I decided to find out if there was some way of getting rid of this wonderful animal, without having to pay our squirrel guy to come back;-) There is quite a wealth of info on the net. One place suggested putting on a thick leather glove and picking it up by the tail...um, yeah, I don't think so, another place said that we needed to buy this powder...fox urine powder and it will leave, um, yeah, I don't think so. There were quite a few sites with possum recipes and Princess was almost in tears at the thought of that, so we will stick with leftover turkey for now, I guess.

We have decided to wait until tomorrow, when the sun is hopefully out, and we are going to see if it is still there. Then I am not sure what to do. Do we call the humane society? The squirrel guy? Do we just leave it until it either dies or leaves?

Oh the joys of being back to normal again!!

2 comments:

  1. Your guardian angels are working over time! Is this what you call a sirendipidous homeschool experience.

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  2. A possum? Yikes! I hope it leaves. They're not very nice, from what I hear.

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