It's Baaaaaaaack!

Yesterday, in the approximately 2 seconds I have of daylight between the time I get home from work and when the sun goes down, I re-arranged the horses so Moose went in the pen with the large, newer shelter with Bambi and Fabian, and I appointed "Aunt" Paula as mentor for our new addition.

After that I promptly fed everyone, unhooked the trailer, smashed the heck out of my finger, said a few choice words and went inside. After the pain in my finger subsided (which really, really hurt for a simply smashed appendage but of course I don't even have a bruise today to wear as a badge of honor), I went back outside to check on everyone and make sure they were getting along ok.

Everyone was doing wonderfully. Paula and Itsy were together, resting calmly, and Moose was fitting right in (he seemed very happy to be back with his pal Fabian, even if it means having to put up with that mean little Bambi horse). I turned around to go inside and there it was....

...right behind my truck tire, "dead."

Of course he wasn't dead. I could tell it was the same exact one I had banished the other night, too--he has a scab on his cheek where he must have gotten into a fight with the cat or some other critter.

Well, tonight his fate would change because the truck was unhooked from the trailer, so I ran inside and got my keys, came back out, used an apple-picker to throw him in the back of the truck, Sophie jumped into the passenger's seat and we took off down the highway.

I had my bed lamp on the whole time and after about a mile of that cold air the possum was wide awake and strolling around the truck bed. I pulled off a few miles down the road--I would have gone even further, like the next county, if I had brought my cell phone along and hadn't been in my nightclothes and robe.

I found a safe place to pull over, down a county road a ways, close to a tree row. Using the apple-picker I pestered the rodent once more until he curled up in his death-pose, scooped him up and laid him in the tree row.

It didn't take him long to wake up this time as by the time I made a u-turn and turned the headlights on the area he had vanished. Hopefully this time, for good.

If not, then we might end up with the most interesting Thanksgiving meal ever.