Zinnia and The Bedlam Farm Opossum

It’s dark when I close the door on the chicken coop for the day.  Fate and Zinnia come with me and it’s not unusual one or both of them to chase a rabbit, who thought we were in for the night.

They never catch any.  Neither dog is interesting in hunting, they like the chase but not for very long.

So last night when Zinnia bolted towards the chicken coop I didn’t think much of it.  I got there in time to see something running and then stop.  I called to Zinnia to “leave it” and she did.

But something was different.  I wasn’t so sure what ever she was chasing ran away.

And when I got a closer look there was the opossum that got caught in the garbage pail in the barn last month. It was dark but I could see the gray hair and pointy nose.  It wasn’t moving, I couldn’t even see it breathing.

At first I was horrified that Zinnia had killed him, but just as quickly, I realized that the opossum was most like playing dead, as opossums do.

“Opossum has developed an act that would receive and Academy Award in the animal Kingdom.” Jamie Sams and David Carson write in their Animal Cards Book. “The musk of the death scent is excreted at will, adding to the master play that sends enemies on many trails of confusion.”

So I closed up the Chicken Coop, called the dogs into the house and walked away, leaving the opossum laying in the snow, looking very dead.

It was possible that Zinnia pounced on the opossum and accidentally killed him.  I was hopeful this wasn’t the case, but I didn’t know for sure.

Not until I got up this morning and looked behind the chicken coop and saw that the opossum was gone.

Later when I went to feed the donkeys and sheep, Zinnia ran right to the spot where the opossum had been.  Perhaps she was smelling the death scent.

I called her to me and she came.

“Zinnia,” I said ” that opossum is a part of the farm,  he lives here like the rest of us, so you can leave him alone from now on.”

Sometimes talking to Zinnia works.  I don’t know that she understands my words as much as my intentions.  I’m hoping this is one of those times.

Now that I know for sure the opossum is making more appearances,  I’m thinking we might want to name him (or her I’m not sure of opossums sex).  He is the only animal that Zip hasn’t eaten or chased out of the barn.  I have  feeling they keep to themselves, but I don’t really know what goes on at night in the barn.

I was very relieved his morning not to the find the dead body of the opossum behind the chicken coop.  I texted Jon because he has become attached to the opossum too.  “Yay!” he texted back.

Just what I was feeling.