One of my husband’s favorite childhood memories involves setting a simple trap in his suburban backyard. He and his father worked to create the trap, made from a box and a string, if I’m remembering correctly. He can describe his thrilled he was to realize that the trap had work, and that they had captured a wild rabbit. They admired it for a while and then released it back into its natural habitat.
You can hear it in his voice, every time he tells the story, that this was one of those unforgettable, beautiful moments of childhood etched in his memory.
So I guess it made sense that when we discovered that our strawberries were being consumed by an animal that was most definitely not us, he saw the opportunity to create the same magic for his children.
A friend had gifted us a lovely live trap, so up it went. Baited with strawberry tops, it was carefully placed and watched. And watched. And watched.
Nothing.
In a final effort, Christopher tossed a few remnants of cheese into the trap and repositioned it. Upping the ante? Perhaps. I’ll be honest, I had forgotten the trap…
Until I came down for my morning quiet time and opened the curtain to let the 6 a.m. sunshine in. The trap was far enough from the house that all I could see was movement. But it was clearly not bunny movement. They’ve caught a squirrel, I thought. Twenty minutes later, when Simon came down and I told him to look closely at the trap, he made an announcement.
Not a squirrel!
He was right.
Enter the memory my husband hadn’t quite intended, but will no doubt live on regardless.
Birdie was entranced. Even when the opossum, which was clearly juvenile, backed itself into a corner and began hissing, she insisted on bandying about possible names. Don’t worry— I never let her believe for one minute that she was keeping it. But still… a girl can dream.
One of our boys was quite put out that we wouldn’t let him kill it and skin it. I’m not saying which one, but you can probably guess. And no, we don’t kill things that we don’t eat around here. Since I’m not quite ready to serve opossum anything, this was strictly a catch and release scenario.
In case you’re wondering, we made every effort to be weird homeschoolers and observe the unique features of this fascinating creation. I mean, we did have the only example of a North American marsupial alive and in person! But alas, aside from getting a good look at his or her hands and tail, this particular specimen was in no way cooperative.
So he was carefully ferried to the back field.
And released.
The kids were buzzing with excitement nearly all day. I’m pretty sure the plan for today was to search for tracks in the soft mud and sand lining the creek, but with the heavy rains of the early morning, I doubt they’ll find much. But who knows. I also doubted they’d catch a rabbit in that live trap… and while I was right about the rabbit, I was most definitely wrong about the catching part.