The Bedlam Farm Opossum

The opossum is back. Or more likely he never left.

It might have been the warm weather that brought him out looking for food.  I didn’t see him, but I did see his footprints as I was walking back from the pond.

Those little outstretched toes that look like stars in the snow and mud.  There’s something playful, almost joyful about them.

I followed the tracks from the marsh to the apple tree, then around the old stone foundation, to the pile of wood for the summer bon fire, then to the fence.

Every time I thought I lost the trail, in a mess of donkey and sheep prints  I’d just stop for a moment and look and there would be more little stars.  It’s as if my eyes got used to seeing them.  Like my brain was adapting to find them.

Suddenly they seemed to be everywhere, vanishing at the old tire, then magically appearing five feet away.

On the other side of the fence, I followed the opossum’s foot prints to the hole in the apple tree, around the paper birch to my garden.  I lost track of them at the driveway where the snow is all melted and the ground too hard for foot prints.

I did notice they didn’t go under the front porch or near the woodshed, where Zip spends a lot of time. However they were under the bird feeder by my studio, along with prints from Fate, Zinnia, Zip and the hens.

I imagine the Opossum is living in the barn, or maybe in the apple tree that has a few hollow limbs.  I don’t know if it’s a male or female, but someone told me it might be a young male off on his own for the first time.

I know that Opossums mostly come out at night so I’m not likely to see a lot of him.

But I also know that from now on I’ll spot his tracks as easily as a deer, mouse, or rabbit.  And I’ll expect to see them in the barnyard and back yard, adding to all the other  paw prints I’m used to seeing.