The Opossum and the Pumpkin

This post won’t have any music to go with it but I had to share my latest encounter with Heloise. I’ve discovered that I am being visited by two opossums. One is considerably bigger than Heloise and only shows up periodically. Heloise, on the other hand, is rather small (about the size of a housecat) and has become a regular.

Recently, I have been seeing Heloise in the morning as well as late at night. This was puzzling at first because opossums are nocturnal, and aside from her one sleep over in the corner of my porch a couple of months ago she has always been gone by morning.

The big reveal three days ago was that she has claimed my hollow ceramic pumpkin as her own and has been spending her days there. I discovered this as I opened the blinds and saw an opossum tail sticking out of the pumpkin’s mouth. Heloise is small but it still looked like a tight fit. She stayed in the pumpkin until well after dark, then slowly emerged and went on her way. I presume she was off to find dinner.

I tried several times to get a photo of her poking her nose out of the back of the pumpkin but haven’t been successful yet. The best I can do is the image below in which you can see some of her fur sticking out the pumpkin’s mouth. I’ll keep trying.

I’m not sure why I am so tickled by this. Maybe because she trusts me, or maybe because I’m so glad she has a warm place to curl up and sleep. It’s been quite cold here. At any rate, I wanted to share with all of you. Animals are the best, aren’t they?

Hugs!
Jena