My mother always said that when you live in the country you can't choose your neighbors! How true. These two little possums took over the cat's food on the back porch last November. Naturally, I moved the cat's food indoors, which meant the cats moved in as well. They loved it this winter. The possums continue to visit, one even beating on the door demanding to be let in! I did not oblige!
The deer have finally come out of hiding in the old abandoned orchard. We have too many houses close by to allow hunting so the deer have free run of about 500 acres. There appears to be two small herds of about a dozen each, all sizes.I didn't notice any deer feeding with the cattle and wondered how they got along with the heavy snow cover the last six weeks, but they seem to have survived just fine.
We all get together on Monday evenings and have a family dinner, each house bringing a specific dish such as entre, starch, vegetable or dessert. We rotate the dishes and houses. There's always a lively discussion on a variety of topics. With the thaw of the last couple of days we all commented on the huge amount of mole activity in our yards. That lead us all to muse on the sudden lack of skunks on the property. Five or six years ago it seemed we were overun with skunks but not moles. Skunks compete with the moles for those fat white grubs that you find all summer long when you dig in the garden (or anywhere else for that matter). The moles feed on those grubs and so do skunks. No skunks means more grubs and more moles! My sister mentioned that the main predator to skunks is owls since they have little sense of smell. We have a lot of owls, so we are thinking they are killing off the skunks. How many people do you know have dinner conversation about owls, skunks, grubs and moles? With a doctor and two RN's in the group, it was a nice break from the details of hospital activities.
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