GET GROWING!
WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE
Look who strolled into my yard!
By LADYBUG
There’s a whole lot of partying going on in my garden these days. No, not the kind you think – it’ll be months before I can welcome friends into my garden. But that doesn’t stop others from using the space to cavort in.
Squirrels and rabbits were all I had to deal with in our previous garden. I actually found them cute. Until I’d had it with their chewing up the bulbs I planted with such hope of spring colour. And until our neighbour Steve said squirrels were nothing but rats with bushy tails.
When I grumbled about the havoc they wreaked on my sprouting bulbs – and the chewed up remains they left as evidence of a party – another neighbour Bruno offered to bring out his gun and said we’d have rabbit stew. As he did go hunting with his pals, I wasn’t sure if he was joking or not and hastily trotted out our vegetarian status to deter any such plans.
But I made peace with them as my garden matured.
In our new home, skunks and raccoons wandered into our garden (and onto the deck, where they always, but always left a smelly calling card) as the weather cooled.
We scrubbed it clean – repeatedly – sprayed Critter Ridder and installed motion sensor lights. Nothing was too effective for too long. Our neighbour Anne laughed that the creatures visited their deck to raid the birdfeeders and then used our deck as the washroom.
We learned to live with these creatures, too. But just as we were settling into a sort of uneasy truce, along came a possum. An ugly creature if ever there was one. I don’t care what animal lovers say, a possum is not cute. Nor is the damage it causes by rolling around in garden beds.
But one woman does not agree with me. Ally Burguieres has written Possums Are Not Cute! And Other Myths about Nature’s Most Misunderstood Critter (Quirk Books, $19.99) and the following except is from the promotional blurb:
Possums may steal your garbage... but with this book, they’ll also steal your heart!
Possums are more than the ugly-cute icons of the internet. These so-called trash animals and pointy kitties are not only relatable avatars for anxious but resilient people everywhere, but nature’s secret clean-up crew.
Organized around common myths that have given possums a bad reputation, this fun and offbeat book reveals the truth about possums through dozens of adorable photos, informative illustrations, and fascinating facts. Did you know that…
• Possums protect people and pets from disease! A single possum can eat up to 4,000 ticks per week!
• Possums excel at interspecies friendships, often sleeping in other animals’ dens.
• Possums are shy creatures: when they “play dead,” they are actually fainting from anxiety!
Written by wildlife rehabber and possum advocate Ally Burguieres, known for her popular Instagram account@ItsMeSesame, this accessible and giftable guide explains why possums deserve our admiration and offers tips on how we can protect and advocate for these magical marsupials.
My son sent me this poster to try and convince me that possums in my yard were, in fact, cute!
While I don’t enjoy the thought of a poor creature fainting from anxiety, I’d rather it played possum than I fainted from shock at being surprised by one. And I would rather use buckets of insect repellant than employ the services of a possum as a resident tick-consumer.
But I have seen the possum and skunks move comfortably in each others’ presence. The possum even venturing into the area where the skunks hide behind the tool shed and no sounds of warfare emerged, so I’m guessing the part about the interspecies friendships is true.
As the interspecies friendship doesn’t extend between the possum and myself, I am hoping it will move on to some other yard.