Possums really DO "play possum"

Last night around 2 am, I learned that possums really do play possum!!!

Just a side note, we live on 10 acres, with a natural spring fed pond in our back yard. The pond is inhabitated with beavers. We've seen snakes, deer, coyotes, you name it...we're not strangers to wildlife.

Back to the story...I let our dogs out in the backyard before I went to bed not realizing the back gate was open. So, 1:30ish I'm awoken to John crying. I got him situated again and went back downstairs to let the pups in. I opened the door to the back porch....no dogs. I proceed to the side door, off the kitchen which opens to the deck. I barely got the door open and here comes Wrangler barreling at me with something in his mouth (it's bitch black and all I see are shapes). He makes in the door and thud....a very LARGE furry animal. At this point, I had no idea what it was but I couldn't get to the lightswitch fast enough.

Lightswitch on...OH MY GOD (that's exactly what I said but just a few octaves higher)! It was the largest possum I have ever seen! It looked freshly mauled and we assumed it was dead. I ran into our room to get Tim. Tim scrambles into the garage to get something to move the possum back outside. So he pushes it out with a broom and says he'll move it with a shovel in the morning and walks away. I'm thinking, great we're gonna have this possum carcus hanging out on the deck which will attrach other varmits but he wasn't gonna mess with then so I didn't push it. Well as soon as he walked away, I looked down and the possum's body starts moving. Tim just thought it was probably just it's dying muscle contractions. I shut the door and attempted to go back to bed but couldn't help wonder if that possum was alive.

My alarm went off at 5:30 this morning and the first thing I did was go and check on it....sure enough, the possum was GONE!!!! He was totally playing possum on us! I mean we're actually lucky, b/c possums are mean and carry all kinds of diseases so I'm glad he was playing possum!

It was quite an experience!