Our pool remains unopened and in need of a new liner (don’t ask) so it’s been turning itself into a green pond of sorts, welcoming and apparently beckoning all sorts of wildlife to make a home of its unchlorinated water. We started off the spring with a visit by two ducks, who were very adamant about trying to nest beneath a poolside juniper. We dissuaded that, repeatedly (though it turns out the whole ‘birds don’t like human scents’ myth is nothing but a myth, as sprays of cologne did not quite keep them at bay). Ultimately, they gave up and moved elsewhere.
A few weeks went by rather uneventfully until one morning we awoke to find an opossum sitting in the dry shallow end of the pool. Andy had heard it go in during the night, and in the morning hours there it saw, groggy and cranky-looking in the light of day. I felt bad for the thing. Too big to scoop out with the net, we decided to put a wooden plank in so it could climb out. I didn’t want to hurt it in any way – possums eat ticks by the truckload, so I’m very happy to have it patrolling the neighborhood in the night – and I wanted to give it a chance to move out peacefully.
After consulting some friends, who advised that it would probably sleep during the day, we left it alone in the hope that it would disappear in the night. I would peek over the edge of the pool and peer in to find it at various stations during the day. It had noticed the plank and was sitting beneath it, but other than that made no motions of moving out. I told Andy we would give it one night, and if it wasn’t gone in the morning we would have to be more forceful in our eviction plan.
That evening, after the sun went down and after I went to bed, it made its move and climbed out. There was no sign of it the next morning. That’s my kind of visitor. No muss, no fuss, and just enough contact to be interesting.
