possum went a courtin' and he did ride, uh- huh?

I have a pest problem. It's harvest time in Iowa which means farmers are driving around in their combines collecting crops...mostly corn or soybeans. Mice have been chowing down on corn the entire growing season and have developed a hearty mouse population in the fields. Now that the crops are gone the mice are scrambling to find a warm place to spend their winter...they've decided to spend it in our house, damnit, and we've been finding little mouse turds everywhere. Poop on top of the fridge, under the couch, under the sink, in the bathroom. I'm not worried about the mice so much as the fleas they could be harboring...and I don't care much for their turds, either.

I have a cat that lives outside on the porch, we call her Porch Cat. She's prgnant and hungry and I'm sure she's doing her fair share of mousing to feed her little kitten fetuses. We'll feed her kibble at night but she doesn't always eat all of the food. The other night I looked out the window and saw that the food was gone and I saw Porch Cat cuddling next to a black cat, or so I thought. I yelled to Seth that we had a new black cat friend. I tapped on the window to get it's attention and, I'll tell you what, that wasn't no black cat. It was a giant Possum (opossum) and it was getting awful friendly with Porch Cat. When the Possum saw me it trundled off into the wild blue yonder and Porch Cat just sat there staring at me, mad that I chased off her warm cuddle buddy.

So, I guess Porch Cat doesn't have the killer instinct of a bobcat. Or maybe she's just trying to find a baby daddy. It's nice to see creatures getting along. That possum damn near scared the shit out of me, though. I'm still glad she'll eat a mouse.