It was a dark and stormy night, the wind was up and the rain was coming down in sheets. Very dramatic! After an evening playing Dominion with my brother, (Thanks to my cousins Jenny and Alex for the gift!) I started walking up the hill to my studio. Wiley, of course, was with me initally but he took off to do his night patrol of the property. He does this every night.
Anyway, there I was walking alone up the hill. As I passed the door to the cat's section of the barn, I heard Hilda making a low howl and growling. When I opened the door to see what's going on, I see she's on the floor of the barn looking up to the counter where I feed the cats. On this counter, casually helping itself to some free cat food, was a huge opossum. It paused when I walked in and didn't react until I said, "What do you think YOU'RE doing?!"
The beast ran toward the back door and took a route behind some stacks of wood planks and a collection of old doors. I didn't see it run out the crack in the door that the cats (and this thing too, I suppose) use to get in and out of the barn. So I went to investigate and found it huddled behind the stack of doors that were leaning up against the wall of the barn.
Photo evidence:
I armed myself with a long stick and started screaming at the top of my lungs for Wiley. While I did, I stared banging around where the monster opossum was hiding, with the intent to scare it out of the barn. What I didn't count on was how determined and committed this creature was to staying in the barn and not going out in the storm. When Wiley showed up in high alert mode, he wasn't sure what we were doing but he was ready to battle! I pointed out the beast's location to him and Wiley took up where I left off. While he was growling and barking at the thing, I yelled at it to "Get out of here! You don't belong here! You are not a cat! You are a wild thing! Go away! Shoo!"
I also used my stick to poke it and try to shove it toward the back door. It didn't react the way I was hoping. In fact, it barely reacted at all. I bopped it on the snout thinking that sharks can often be deterred with a bop to the nose, so maybe it would work with giant opossums too. Sadly, it did not. The creature looked annoyed and if it could talk I am sure it would have said, "Don't DO that!" I used the stick to poke it IN THE MOUTH. Again, it gave me an annoyed look and a half-hearted hiss. Finally, I used the stick to bonk it on the noggin which actually got a reaction- it snarled and blinked a few times.
At this point we were at a stalemate. So I decided to move the doors it was hiding behind and let Wiley really get at it. It was a last resort. Even though Wiley had gotten his updated rabies vaccine that morning, I was worried about him getting an injury in the middle of the night. Anyway, I started moving the doors and I could see the beast start to panic. Once I made enough room for Wiley to get in there, he bravely went forth and began to give that opossum "the business".
Unfortunately, I didn't think the plan through very well and all this did was force the creature to run away from the back door and further into the barn. Sneaky little thing ran behind and under the wood planks and into the darkness. Wiley tried to follow it and track it, but there were too many obstacles.
We never saw it again.
The lesson in all this is if I feed the cats in the evening, I cannot leave the food out for them to graze at their leisure.
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