Spring is a time for old friends to return, which is how I think of everything coming up in the garden right now. Wow! Look at the grapevines twirling to life. Check out the roses, awakening from winter. But the other night a real live visitor returned, one I'd thought may well have perished.
My husband and I were enjoying a late dinner on the sunporch. We'd watched the sun go down, turning the sky into a pale pink swirl over the treetops. It grew dark. We talked on. All of a sudden I saw something long and skinny move in the yew next to the porch. Could it be ...
It was an opossum, slowly climbing up the yew and parking himself on a branch. Opossums only live a couple of years, so perhaps this wasn't the original we "met" on the back patio five years ago, or the one that sat the next year, nose to nose, with one of my (less intelligent) kitties on the stone wall around the garden in the back.
Perhaps it was another generation of marsupial (the opossum being North America's one and only) but there he was up in the tree, sitting silently and motionless, which is how the expression "playing 'possum" got going. These guys can do that for hours, even days.
When we first encountered an opossum in the back yard, it was a scary experience. They're kind of funny looking, to be kind, with rat-like tails, pink, pointed noses, tiny sharp teeth and thumbs on their feet. This one walked up the steps from the garden and headed right for us on the patio. I jumped up, ran in the kitchen and started banging some pots and pans. The opossum bared his teeth, hissed at me and slowly lumbered back down into the garden.
Later, he showed up in the yew tree and soon not only did we grow used to his nocturnal visits, we looked forward to them and enjoyed them. All summer long he came to visit, sitting up in the yew tree or waddling quietly through the gardens.
One night last summer, a small crowd formed on the sidewalk below. "Look at that thing!" someone cried. They had seen our friend, who by then we were calling "Nosey," for his big schnozz and his penchant for poking around.
Nosey and company are quite harmless, good citizens who rid the garden of rodents (which means fewer to get into my house, thank you very much), insects, berries, grass, leaves and carrion. Occasionally, they eat vegetables. I've long suspected Nosey as the perpetrator of those mysterious little teeth marks in my pumpkins, tomatoes and squash.
These funny creatures go foraging at night. They don't bother anyone, but whenever I see our little visitor, I worry that he'll end up as road kill. The humans in the neighborhood drive way too fast, especially at night.
Whichever generation our visitor the other night was, we were awfully glad to see him. We reacted as if an old friend had unexpectedly knocked on the door. We tiptoed outside, stood at the bottom of the yew tree and whispered a welcome back. He looked right at us without blinking.
We went back inside and then to bed, with Nosey benignly ensconced in the tree. It was nice to see him again.
