J.R. LeMar

POSSUMS

possum

And I thought ARMADILLOS were creepy!

I just saw one of these in real life for the first time ever. This morning as I was at my mother and stepfather’s house to get my car (yep, I’m still doing the Uber thing), I saw one of these things come running from the yard of the house next door and run across the street to the yard of another house. I was sitting in the car at the time, letting it warm up before I started driving, but I swear I would have literally jumped if I’d been outside. But my heart felt like it jumped in my chest.

I thought it was a giant rat!

The thing was bigger than my mother’s chihuahua. It just started going down the street, from yard to yard, sniffing the grass like it was looking for something. While sitting in the car I called my mother (cause I wasn’t about to get out of the damn car while that thing was loose), waking her up, and asked if any of her neighbors had a rat problem. After explaining and describing what I saw, she told me it a possum, not a rat (which only slightly put me at ease), saying that my stepfather had found and killed one in their backyard before. But they don’t know where these things come from.

I quickly googled possums on my phone to get a picture. Seeing that it was indeed a possum put me more at ease. But still, it freaked me out. Ugh. And you know that some people actually eat these things?

Possum Ð Possum, ham and beef cooked slowly over an open fire on Saturday at the Fountain of Youth. The meat was later eaten as part of the First Thanksgiving event held at the Fountain of Youth as a part of St. AugustineÕs 445th birthday this weekend. By JUSTINE GRIFFIN justine.griffin@staugustine.com

Oh, HELL naw!

5 comments

  2. Possums are cool. Really. If they feel a threat, they will lay down and “play possum” which is playing dead. They do not like to fight. They are mostly scavengers and nocturnal, so if you see one during the day, it’s probably a momma possum that is looking for food so she can be in her den with her babies at night

    Like raccoons, the best way to not attract them is to not leave out garbage, although I’ve known a possum or two to come to where there dog droppings when they are really hungry.

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  3. Possums are amazing creatures. They aren’t scary at all, but quite gentle. We have 3-4 possums that visit our yard regularly, along with the skunks and raccoons. We feed them and they have never been a problem. They are actually quite good for your yard, eating mice, snakes, dead animals and rotten fruit. They are more afraid of you than you should be of them. Our wild possums get along with the skunks, raccoons and bunnies. Possums can eat up to 5000 ticks per year, thereby protecting you from Lyme disease. Please do some more research and your fears about these cute little critters will dissipate. I actually have a couple posts about our possums on my blog if you want to learn more about them. You just might fall in love with them after reading about them. 🙂

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