today, i lorded over SEVEN kids under the age of 5 in my backyard. it is a good thing the weather turned mild and they were able to run around playing in the leaves. of course, after someone commented in my flickr stream about being scared of spiders in leaf piles, i’ve started triple checking the kids for hitchhiking insects. to further the paranoia, i found a funky bug crawling along our back fence and must consult my zoo insect keeper amiga for identification (she’s handy).
speaking of animals, i’m sitting at our dining room table typing away on my laptop. i looked up to notice the beautiful bird feeder my husband filled and hung outside the window for my birthday two months ago had an actual, living cardinal eating seed from it. i heard rumors there was a blue jay pecking around it yesterday but now i have visual confirmation that the birds have finally found the feeder. i was beginning to wonder if we either had really stupid birds or a defective feeder. it didn’t help that i found a dead sparrow laying underneath it a few weeks ago and started wondering if the feed came from china laced with melamine. my dad told me the birds would find the feeder as it got colder and they probably didn’t notice it because it wasn’t attached to a tree. the weather has turned cold and we have birds eating outside the window- dad was right again.
our backyard is also home to dozens of incredibly fat squirrels scampering through the leaves holding two more nuts than fit in their mouths or squirrely little paws (squirrels have paws, right? claws? hands?). with four trees in a small yard and no dogs or cats to chase them off, our yard is small animal heaven. i haven’t seen any possums this year but i’m sure they are lurking around. i am pretty sure i’ve told this story before but i can’t find it after an extensive search of my archives (i.e. googling kimblahg + possum. why don’t i have a marsupial tag?) so i’ll recount one of our most bizarre suburban animal experiences.
when the triplets were still in the NICU, i began collecting strollers. i didn’t have my babies at home so my maternal instinct turned towards procuring infant transportation – never mind that they were too small to sit in standard strollers for months, they needed wheels! the first triplet stroller i bought was a peg perego behemoth triplet transporter. it was a nice stroller but giant, unwieldly and hard to push. after forcing mike to put it together the instant i brought it home (still sans babies), we realized there was no way we could get it in and out of the van and it was relegated to the garage. later, i bought a triple runabout which was just about the best damn thing ever. it had stadium seating so the kids could all see over each other, bicycle wheels for easy navigation and a sunshade to protect their precious little heads. i added it to our collection. later, i bought a double back to back stroller for the boys and a single conventional stroller for lily and her traveling respiratory unit. eventually, i added a double and single umbrella stroller to our arsenal and ended up using that combo more than anything. the triplet strollers, while nice, were massive and drew too much attention to our already noticeable brood. we usually only used them when walking around the block so they spent most of the time garaged.
one winter evening, after the triplets were home from the NICU and i was asleep, mike was in the garage. he sat on the garage couch (what, you don’t have garage furniture?) reading a book when he heard a scratching noise. he looked everywhere before he realized it was coming from the mammoth peg triplet stroller which hadn’t been touched since assembly. he slowly crept towards it and peeked inside the middle seat where he noticed a curled up, furry animal.
it took a moment before he realized it was a large possum curled like a cat and sleeping in our babies’ stroller. i would have screamed but if he did, he won’t admit it. he pushed the button activating the loud garage door opener hoping to wake the thing up. it didn’t move. he jostled the stroller and woke mr. possum up. it looked at him and went back to sleep. it wasn’t even scared enough to “play” possum and go to sleep, it was just irritated to be woken up so it curled back up and closed its eyes. he finally wheeled the huge stroller out to the driveway and tried to dump the possum out. that woke it up but it didn’t vacate the baby seat. instead, it started hissing and baring its teeth at him while he attempted to dislodge it without touching it. finally, he grabbed a stick and poked at it while it stood hissing away until it finally jumped out and ran off. he stared at the now empty stroller and wheeled it back in the garage.
we never put the babies in the possum stroller and eventually sold it to another family. we didn’t tell them it attracts the only native marsupial to north america but we did disinfect it first.
p.s. speaking (writing) of animals, check out this barred owl that lives in my parents’ back yard. he was heard hooting for weeks before spotted one morning on a small branch ten feet from the driveway.