Country Living – Possum hunt

I have found myself with a new level of loathing for possums. Prior to this and like most of us, I was only blindly aware of the massive destruction these introduced animals were having on our environment. Our Tapora peninsula has had a strong Landcare group funded by us landowners for a very long time, so the masses have mostly been eradicated out here. My intimate knowledge of their presence extended only to an occasional polite wave to a trapper on our farm and a cosy pair of possum blend bed socks. That was, until I noticed some strange happenings in my favourite lemon tree out my back door.

In all these years, I had never had a possum in my home garden, so I was oblivious to their conduct. Whole lemons hanging from my tree stripped entirely of the rind – perhaps I would have been grateful for the effort if I was juicing them? The concept of eating just the rind amused me slightly. I mean, let’s face it, apart from Nana’s boiled fruitcake on Christmas day, who in their right mind would voluntarily choose to eat peel and leave the flesh? I concluded that possums must not only be destructive and rude, but they are also stupid!

Over a short period of time, this possum proceeded to pillage the lemons in my garden. This, of course, annoyed me greatly, so I brought a trap and placed it under the tree. This was when I quickly realised that possum stupidity does not extend to them eating lemons in a small yellow trap when they can grab them off the tree.

So, out came the crunchy peanut paste, but alas, and with no results. I had to presume this freak was the only possum in existence with a nut allergy. Angry, and with my favourite lemon tree stripped almost bare, I decided it was time for a possum hunt. The big problem I had with this was the fact that possums have those hopelessly gorgeous “big brown eyes” and us chicks are suckers for those. This meant trying to avoid such songs on my playlist such as Bright Eyes by Art Garfunkel and Brown Eyed Girl by Van Morrison if I was to successfully blow a possum of its perch.

It was a freezing night when I coaxed myself and husband out of the warmth of the lounge and loaded up with bullets for his Remington pump action shotgun. Armed with a good spotlight, we lurked around the surrounding gardens and farms sheds like a couple of creeps until I finally spotted a glowing set of eyes in the rafters. I pulled back the spotlight and retreated to get a quick pep talk from the husband. I loaded the gun and pulled it back ready to fire. By this stage I was pretty “wired” to dispose of this vermin who had denied my family’s right to lemon cordial and lemon syrup cakes. My husband lifted the spotlight and I took what I thought was a strong stance, raised the gun and pressed it firmly against my shoulder. Through the open sight I could see the truth in the phrase, “stunned like a possum in headlights”. In my line of vision, I thought I had perfect eyes on my target and did not hesitate to pull the trigger. Bang! The recoil pushed me back and it’s at this point that I wish I could tell you that I took down that rancid little dirtbag, but I missed.

Stunned by my own absolute failure, I could hear my husband ranting on about how impossible it was to miss that clear shot and something about “give me the gun, woman”. However, it was too late. The possum had scurried off and hid in the rafters. We wandered around the bush on the farm for a long time that night looking for possums. I had never really immersed myself in our native bush at the night and it was quite a surreal experience until it wasn’t. The drizzle and wind eventually picked up, and with no sightings of possums, I declared myself bored and cold and wandered back to the warmth of my home. It was back at home, and after my husband had locked his gun away, that I gave him one of those deep eyeball stares that only a wife can do. With no words spoken Rodney knew exactly what I wanted.

The next night he grabbed his gun and left the house. When he came home, he told me he had a present for me, and “that possum and a couple of others will no longer be bothering you again, Sweetheart”. So, finally with my immediate possum situation sorted, and with lemons now on the grocery list, I am able to reflect on the impact that these overstayers are having on our environment and our food sources. While I am deeply proud of all those volunteers out there trapping and landowners like those of us in Tapora who donate amounts of money above our taxes for their eradication, we have a long way to go. As far as I’m concerned, the only good possums are either up a tree in Aussie, keeping my feet warm or dead.