In article
,
Billy wrote:

In article ,
"Priscilla H. Ballou" wrote:

In article ,
"FarmI" ask@itshall be given wrote:

Friends had some significant domestic disbliss in their house with all
members of the house accused of eating the best pieces of fruit from the
fruit bowl before anyone else could have any with furious denials and
counter accusations all round.

After some time, it turned out that the fruit bowl, which used to sit on
a
table just under an opened unscreened window 2 floors up (in the Aussie
tropics), was visited regularly by a possum who ate the best bits.

LOL

Another friend whose lady left him and who suffered severe loneliness as
a
result, took to divering himself by taming a local possum mother and her
baby. He took to having dessert on his back deck where he would sit
eating
his fruit and laying out a slice on the floor for the possum until she
became so tame that she'd take it from his hand.

They are very, very cute animals until one has one in the ceiling cavity
or
attacking one's fruit. At that stage murder is a good option.

When I was a kid, my grandfather had established a similar relationship
with a mama raccoon and her babies at his cabin on a lake in Michigan.
We'd sit on the back patio in the summer evening and offer bits of food
to the family, and they'd take them from our hands, the babies learning
fro their mother. Raccoon hands/paws are very interesting to touch --
leathery and dry. Excellent childhood memory. ;-)

Nowadays in my urban neighborhood, any "wild" animal that would allow
one that close is suspect for rabies. A family of raccoons who were
living in an abandoned house fairly near me were exterminated because
one of them was rabid (which meant all could soon become rabid). I
think that was the same family whose babies climbed all over the back of
my house and would be deterred by nothing short of my doing my "mean
schoolmarm" impression out of a second floor window. While my "mad cat"
noises brought no interest from them, that impression of a strict lady
in corset and shoes which are too tight who was referring to them as
"young man!" scared the bejeezus out of them and sent them hightailing
out of my yard.

Saw one possum once, but he was in sad shape, having apparently been
attacked by another animal. Similarly we have no skunks now, although
we did when I bought my house in 1998.

Priscilla

Unfortunately, rabies isn't the only game in town.
http://www.michigan.gov/dnr/0,1607,7...-27261--,00.ht
ml

It was over 50 years ago we fed those raccoons, and I'm now on the east
coast and not in Michigan, so this doesn't scare me any.

Priscilla
--
"What you fail to understand is that criticising established authority by means
of argument and evidence is a crucial aspect of how science works."
- Chris Malcolm