'Possum in the trap

After the cat episode several days ago, I left one of the traps out. It was one of our wooden box traps. Several years ago an aggressive raccoon began visiting the bird feeders. It was large, and would get on a feeder in the daylight and hunker down over the feed and growl if I walked out on the porch. It also destroyed a couple of hummingbird feeders. I tried catching it in a wire trap like you can buy at the hardware store. The old coon was so big that when the door came down its back end kept it from closing, so it got the bait and backed back out. I called the LDWF and asked for the trapper to make a visit. He came along in a couple of days, pulling a trailer with an ATV with several dead beavers strapped on the back. He had been at the country club trapping beavers on the golf course. He listened to my tale of woe and said he had a trap that he thought would work and he would drop it by in a few days. Sure enough, he came by later in the week with a fine trap made of plywood. I was very impressed with it and asked if I could take it to my carpenter and have him make me one. He said, "Certainly, a woman like you needs a couple of them." He went on to explain that one 4 x 8 sheet of plywood would make two. In the meantime, I set his trap that night and caught the large raccoon. Terry hauled it off to the swamp so it could become king or queen of the jungle.

Since that time, I have caught a whole bunch of critters in my traps, mostly armadillos. I didn't catch a cat in it, but set it up on the front porch, still set, last week. In the meantime, we are being visited by a third cat, about the same size as the other two. This one is black and white and comes up on the front porch every evening. Our cat has made watching for this cat a ritual, and lets out a true caterwaul every evening when it appears. It runs when we appear. Well, the weather was lovely this evening, so Terry and I ate our hamburgers he grilled for our supper on the front porch. At some point I noticed the trap was tripped. I figured the stray cat had bumped it. I was pretty sure it wouldn't go in since there wasn't any bait in it. I picked it up and it felt kind of heavy. I turned it on one end and peered down in it, surprised to see a young 'possum playing dead in the bottom. I had notice that an armadillo had been digging at the edge of the porch, so I dumped the 'possum out(it refused to crawl out; insisted on playing dead) and set the trap again, placing it parallel to the porch in hopes of catching the 'diller. Or 'dillers.

Here is a picture of one of the traps.