We were moving wood from our wood pile into the shed yesterday when I saw this.  Fortunately I was by myself at the time because I screamed good and loud.  It really caught me by surprise.  I must confess my initial thought was what creepy monster is this?!?  Actually I envisioned R.O.U.S. from the Princess Bride.

This poor, little opossum had found a nice, dry den in the center of the woodpile and apparently thought we couldn’t see it if it didn’t see us.  Initially I thought I would stop moving wood for the day but it wasn’t aggressive in any way and we really had to get the wood in. I carefully removed the wood from above it so the pile wouldn’t collapse onto it, then began to take the wood out around it.  It tried to move deeper into the pile but eventually decided to move on.

This morning I decided to see if having an opossum in your wood pile is unusual and found it was not.  The website Living with Wildlife was pretty informative and made me feel better about moving this poor critter along.

I think this is my favorite part about living in a rural area, there are always creatures to surprise me.