TAKE TIME TO SMELL THE ROSES, or whatever.

And if you do not have any roses near by, well, go for the next best thing.

This is one of my favorite pictures of one of my favorite critters. This is PITA, world's most awesome possum. Who wouldda ever believed I could fall in love with a possum? But, there she is. Just thought I would share her with you since I have had so many questions from so many people lately who weren't around this site last year when I did the PITA story - see, ummmmmm, July 4th????? last year. Now you know she is cute!

This is the picture I wanted to use on my profile but I have never figured out how to do that. Maybe somebody will help me do that someday.

Sadly many people do not think of possums as "cute" - well, OK, maybe it is an acquired appreciation, but consider this - possums do not get rabies. They do not dig burrows, they do not chew their way into your house. They might go in once some other critter has made a hole, but they will not do the original damage. They do eat a lot of things, maybe even your dog or cat food if you leave it out, but here is what they enjoy the most - insects, especially crickets, grubs, (of course PITA would only eat grubs after we had washed them and promised her some raspberry yogurt for dessert, but that is beside the point - we are talking truly wild possums here, not spoiled rotten possums) SNAKES - yes, possums eat snakes, even the poisonous variety.

I went back to my posting from a year ago http://possumlane.blogspot.com/2006/07/awesome-possum.html and copied this info, in case you are interested.

Here are some links you might want to check out -Links: http://www.opossum.org/ - the BEST site for any possum info you might ever need, includes excellent on and off site links to your possum questions or needs.Another good site is http://www.opossumsocietyus.org/. It has many links but not as much in depth info as the site above. (Just my opinion, folks)Nice info but nothing to help with injured or orphaned possums - http://www.wildliferescueleague.org/report/opossum.html.This 3rd link did include the following:The opossum is omnivorous, feeding upon almost anything that it can find or catch: rats, mice, moles, slugs, snails, shrews, worms, beetles, ants, grasshoppers, crickets, frogs, garbage, fruit (especially persimmons), corns, berries, and even road kill. That habit gets about 8.3 million opossums killed a year. An opossum seeing an object on a road during the night may believe it to be road kill, and may either freeze in the headlight of a car, or try to run away. As opossums run very slowly, they often get killed. Opossums also enjoy eating snakes, and will kill and eat all snakes including poisonous ones. They are immune to the snake venom, and relish copperhead, water moccasins, rattlesnakes, and others. Again, my opinion, the headlights probably blind the poor creature, so he/she just stands there and… well, around here, half the drivers I know will steer right for the poor thing.
Another pic - one I did not use last year, mostly because it is not a great picture in terms of resolution... probably one of my Mickey Mouse disposable cameras... Always keep your best side to the camera I always say. Hmmmm, I could have called this a "Possum Tail Tale"... nah, I will just say, the end.