Friday 8 June 2012

Dispatches from the Tropics: 8 June 2012

Winter draws on.

No idea how low the temperature dropped overnight, but it was only 9C when I got up this morning. I half expected to find the carpet python frozen on the window sill in a pythicle.

The cold weather has not deterred the possums. It might even have sharpened their wits. I was standing at the kitchen counter, when Mini Poss hurtled up the broom, threw herself onto the flyscreen and scuttled to the top of the window. She kept looking over her shoulder at something 'orrible on the ground.

I thought she might have been scared by a dog that had wandered in from one of the nearby properties. (This happens more often than it should.) So I picked up the nearest dog-shooing implement, which turned out to be a shoe, so that was nicely appropriate, and slid open the back door.

...And a copper-coloured ball of fur with a long black tail scampered past me into the kitchen, closely followed by a smaller ball of fur that I recognised as Mini Poss.

There was no dog.

Mini Poss had been acting as decoy, while her mum took on the job of house breaker. I managed to trap mum against the kitchen cupboards and encouraged her to back up by herding her with my shoe. The two of them sat on the patio, staring ruefully through the glass door at the kitchen. So near and yet so far.

Okay, I'm anthropomorphising, but that doesn't mean they didn't plan it. They are sharp, these possums. Sharp and furry.Well, mainly furry. But sharp too.