Ah, Nature

Thursday night Olivia was out in the garage emptying the canister from the vacuum when all of a sudden she runs in the house saying Mommy, Mommy, Mommy. I thought she got stung by a bee or something, but it turned out she saw a possum (or opossum if you prefer). Yes, a POSSUM! Olivia said when he saw her, he scurried under my vehicle. I went out to the garage to investigate. I noticed he had used our garage floor as his litter box, but opened the garage door before cleaning it up. I searched under the car and behind the few things that are stored next to the car, but did not see him. I figured he had ran out of the garage when I opened the door. I closed the garage door and we went to bed a bit after this adventure.

First thing Friday morning I go out to check the garage under the light of day. That bugger wasn't gone - how do I know you wonder? Well, he had used my garage floor as a litter box again. I opened the door, ran the car, moved things around in the garage. Cleaned up his second mess which as in nearly the same spot as the first I had cleaned up. I know he is nocturnal, but left the door open most of the day so if he wanted to escape captivity he could. All day long no messes, no sight of him. I figured he must have been gone, but decided to check again in the middle of the night when one of the dogs needed to go out. No sign of him so I was pretty confident that he was gone this time.

First thing Saturday morning, I checked the garage! Sure enough, he had used the floor as a litter box again. I decided that meant I needed to take everything out of the garage to get rid of him. So I pulled my vehicle out of the garage and got to work. The first thing I reached for was a bag of mulch (there were four) we didn't use when we added the bed by the mailbox and laid new mulch in another area of the yard. As I am moving that first bag, what did I see? Yep, you guessed it -- that little stinker curled up in a ball playing possum on top of two of our bags of mulch...

It took some time and a little gentle guidance with a metal pole (yes, I am a chicken), but I finally got that little bugger out!! :)

It gives me the willies to look at the pictures I took Saturday morning...LOL!!

JTRS Lovers: Remember Karner Blue?

The 2002 Event Shoe that was inspired by the endangered Karner blue butterfly. Well, here's a bit from a story that was in our paper today...



A Nudge for Nature
Wisconsin program nurtures the flowers that feed the endangered Karner blue butterfly
By MEG JONES

Willard - The pale blue butterfly - hardly bigger than a nickel - fluttered and flitted at the side of the Clark County road dotted with lupine and other wildflowers.

It's no wonder the Karner blue butterfly was sticking close to the lupines, because the purple flower is breakfast, lunch and dinner for the endangered species during its larval stage. As a small caterpillar, the creature eats only wild lupine, snacking on the flower's leaves and leaving behind tiny marks like miniature window panes.

You can read the complete story here.