When Company Arrives Unexpectedly

Despite the menacing appearance of this shady group of uninvited visitors, they are actually pretty harmless.  If anything, they were more comical than anything else.

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Visitors to our yard are nothing new.  Despite the fact that we live in the suburbs, we are not too far from farms, rangeland, and a river.  All that open space and semi-wild areas allow for a wide array of critters to pass through, including foxes, geese and ducks, raccoons, and of course lovely possums like this group here.

I don’t mind these critters, really.  Usually the worst they will do is eat pet food that’s been left out.  They look a lot meaner than they really are, and it’s easy to see why.  They look like overgrown rats, after all.  The reality is that they are not that aggressive, though they will protect themselves if threatened.  My cats give them a wide berth just to be on the safe side.

The most surprising thing was that they were out during the day, and the fact that there were four of them.  It’s pretty funny how oblivious they were to my presence until I was right near by them.  Even funnier was how they froze as if I wouldn’t see them if they didn’t move.  At least they managed to leave the yard under better circumstances than the fellow in the picture below!