O is for Opposum

It's time again For ABC Wednesday. If you aren't participating in ABC Wednesday, you are missing out on a lot of fun.

The letter this week is "O". O is for opossum.

The opossum is North America's only marsupial mammal. The female carries and nurses her young in her pouch until they are about 2 to 3 months old; then they are carried on her back another 1 to 2 months whenever they are away from the den. They will eat almost anything including insects, snails, rodents, berries, over-ripe fruit, grasses, leaves, and carrion; occasionally will eat snakes, ground eggs, corn or other vegetables. They are very adaptable; able to live wherever water, food, and shelter exist. They are at home in trees. An opossum uses its prehensile tail to help stabilize position when climbing— it does not, however, hang by its tail.

Here in Arkansas we refer to them as possums. Actually real possums only live in Australia and New Guinea. They have been introduced into New Zealand. That's OK, we still call our homely little creatures possums. We occasional have a possum that decides it wants to live with us.


OPIE AWESOME JUNIOR MOVES IN

This little guy decided that the house that we have for Moses our cat would be a great place to live. He stayed with us for several days, and we had a very difficult time persuading him to leave. Maybe I shouldn't have named him. I called him Opie Awesome Junior. Junior, because he was a young possum. He would stay just a few feet from the back door. He wasn't afraid of us, and I would have to turn the cat house upside down to get him out. I would then have to hit him with a broom to get him to leave the back porch. He was so ugly that he was cute, but our cat was afraid to come on the back porch, so Opie had to go.


OPIE AWESOME JUNIOR EATING THE CAT'S FOOD

We still have possums that come around the house, but no one has tried to take up residence here since Opie Awesome Junior. Maybe it is because our granddog Sally, a yellow lab, caught one on our back porch. I guess the word is out in Possumland not to come up on my back porch. It's too bad, sometimes I miss Opie.