So A Possum and A Groundhog Go Into...

Apologies for a lack of posting since the 15th - it's been a strange month what with family emergencies and the sad, sad death of my garden (viciously murdered by stinkbugs).

Also - for the last 2 weeks - we have entertained a visitor (see above photo). **Disclaimer -none of these photos are mine, simply because the subjects seem to know when I have a camera and remain hidden.**

Frankly I suspect all groundhogs look alike -including the one making himself at home under our neighbors home. It's sitting vacant, except for an occasional visit from their teenage son to mow the grass. I haven't been able to catch him yet to ask permission to put the live trap on his property, so instead, it's been under our oak tree, where said groundhog breakfasts, lunches and has his dinner.

See, our front yard is "downtown" for our groundhog, while the neighbor's house is the suburbs. He runs across our driveway to munch on our acorns, right after sitting up to wave at me, just like the photo above.

Now here's the thing: he's awfully cute. But he will bite if cornered, and he's getting big. Bigger than our schnauzers. If he is a he, then he will just hibernate under the house till next spring, then continue to raid my garden. However, if he is a she, she will hibernate and have a lovely little family of 4-6 pups in the spring. When they are big enough, each one will want it's own burrow, making our house prime real estate property.

The furry cutie has to go.

The war is on.

So we have a live trap -one you open at one end, place food in the other end, and said groundhog wanders in to get the food, triggers the door, and is safely contained so he/she can be moved to a remote location.

That's the plan anyways.

Unless the trap is set out under the acorn tree and an earlier diner guest shows up, in this case the possum from the back yard, who usually eats the cat food by the back door, and actually came inside the back door the other day to remind me I had forgotten to put food out for it.

Turns out possum loves apples smeared with peanut butter as much as the ground hog does.

And possum got there first.

He was not happy.

Until he realized he was trapped inside WITH the apples and peanut butter, at which point he turned around and started eating. Then he went to sleep. When we found him next morning, he was still sleeping. We woke him up to tilt the cage and boot him out, but he was having none of that.

He stayed. All in all, for a trap, it was an impressive abode. He went back to sleep.

Then we started worrying about him being out in the light, so we got a blanket to put over the cage. And then we made sure he had some apple left.

All day we turned the cars around next to the tree, the postman came in his truck and turned around right next to the tree, dogs barked - none of it mattered. Possum slept on, oblivious to it all, curled up under the blankie.

He didn't leave until well after dark, some 10 hours later. And he left the blankie, but took the apples.

I am fairly sure I could hear the groundhog snickering over in his/her burrow.