A Opossum Tale, Playing ‘Possum, & ‘Possum Soup
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Once upon a time, many, many years ago my daughter, Brittany, came running through house, “Mommy! Mommy! There are two gi-i-i-ant rats fighting outside.”
Rats? BIG rats? In our back yard? This called for an immediate investigation. I picked Nicole up, with Brittany tugging at my hand to hasten my pace to the dining room window. It was from there she witnessed the dispute between two angry critters.
We strained to get a glimpse of the animals who had moved close to the house and out of line of line of sight, but we could hear them banging against some building material stacked behind our house. All at once, they appeared.
“There they are,” she pointed. “Mommy, go outside and make them stop before the little one gets hurt!”
My eyes widened. The little beasties had beadie black eyes, long snouty noses, sharp teeth, razor claws, and rather big. “Oh, Sweetie girl those aren’t rats. They’re Opossums.”
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The conversation continued with me explaining how it was never a good idea to try to break up two wild animals fighting and that this was natural for them to do this because one was trying to protect its homes. The rest of the day was calm knowing our yard was safe of a rat invasion.
That was 20 years ago, but even now when I remember this story it makes me smile as I remember one small child’s sweet innocence and two rats opossums scrapping it out in our back yard.
What comes to mind when you think of opossum?
“Playing possum”, right? Opossum got shorten to possum in the 1600 and this common phrase was first recorded in 1822. It is often used in our own colorful expressions. Here’s a fun example of what of “Playing possum“…
However, more times than not, when I think of opossum, I think…
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Granny from the Beverly Hillbilly’s. I tell you what Granny would be saying, if she saw those opossums in our back yard. “Jed, fetch my gun!” I would imagine she may have in mind of fixin’ up some fine vittles with them critters. Perhaps in a pot of …
- 1 each small possum
- 2 liter water
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 pinch celery leaves
- 1 pinch parley
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 tablespoon flour
- fried bread, 1 slice per serving
Skin and clean possum, then quarter the animal. Place it in a large pot or camp over along with water and salt. Cover and simmer gently for 3 to 4 hours. (Tough little devils apparently.) Add vegetables and simmer for another 1 1/2 hours (Still tough. Even the veggies are resisting being associated with this.) Strain soup through a large holed colander when meat has left bone and remove bones, especially small ones. Return soup to the pot and add parsley and celery leaves. Thicken with mixed olive oil and flour. Cut fried bread into 1 inch squares and serve soup over toast, boiling hot.
Do people really eat opossum? Apparently so, President-Elect William H. Taft requested baked possum with baked sweet potatoes at a big dinner in Atlanta in 1909.
It’s a safe beat to say, opossum is something I would not want to sink my teeth into. All I can think is, “Eee-uuuu! Oh, heavens NO!”
Grown opossum are an ugly and frightening sight, but baby opossum are kinda cute…
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Don’t you think?
It’s easy to see how my little daughter thought the opossum are kin to the rodent family, but in fact they are not remotely related. In fact, opossum are marsupials, which means they carry their young in a pouch like kangaroos and koalas.
For more obviously, outstanding, and perhaps over-the-top ‘O’ posts visit Miss Jenny at …
1. What is the most unusual wildlife you found in your backyard?
- Do you live in the city or in the country? Feel free to specify, if you’re just inside the city or just outside the city limits or out in the woods far away from city life.
Thanks for visiting. I’ll be by your place soon!
17 Comments
Jenny
Possums kind of scare me.
My Grandmother made possum soup. I always just ate bread for those meals!
This brought back a lot of memories…thank you for that, Cathy.
And thank you for sharing another outstanding link to Alphabe-Thursday!
Hugs and A+
Andy
Hello.
Baby or not, they look pretty fierce…wouldn’t want to cross one when it was having a bad day! LOL
As for the soup…I think I’ll pass. Rodents really are not my thing (smile).
Fun post.
Thanks for sharing & visiting.
Oh Love
JamericanSpice
That was a very interesting read. But heavens NOOO NO NO. I …ok I hope I’ll never have to eat such a thing.
1. We have rodents in our back yard…they burrow into the lawn and causes lumps of earth and makes the yard miserable. I forgot what they are called. I am willing to shoot them.
2. I live in the suburbs…I wouldn’t midn in the country where I have space to fly a kite. And we live beside a canefield so snakes come a calling too. yuck!
Happy weekend to you 🙂
Self Sagacity
1) Wild life in my backyard? Field mouse and wild grasshoppers.
2) I live sort of in the country and sort of in the city. Three minutes and I can see horse ranch, 10 minutes the other way and I am in the middle of shops, freeways, etc.
SquirrelQueen
I’m a Southern girl so possums is possums. Usually when I saw them in the south it was as roadkill.
We have possums, raccoons, sometimes skunks, squirrels but no mice. Did I mention my little cat brood and their semi-feral mom? Mice don’t last long here. The cats and possums ignore each other (after some reading I found out this is normal).
Actually I think possums are kind of cute. There was a cute baby one in the yard last summer. He has grown up now and still walks through the yard sometimes. I would much rather have possums than raccoons. I worry about the cats when they are around.
We live on the edge of a small town in rural SE WA state. We are surrounded by farm land and a small mountain range.
Ames
They are nasty boogers. I have an ugly old fat white one in my back yard. I usually see his shadow when the moon is full. Then when I turn on the light to look at him he waddles slowly away.
My father actually cooked one for his hunting dogs. Yuck. And my oldest sister tasted it. Not me! No Possom shall cross these lips!Yuck!~Ames
Lavender Cottage
The possums are moving north and we now have them in our area of Ontario. I’ve only seen adults and they are scary, nasty looking critters. We live in a pocket village in a rural area so lots of habitat for them.
I wouldn’t want to eat them and I think the Andy Griffith show mentioned possum pie on occasion.
Good informative ‘o’ post.
upinthecosmos
What a fun post, I love that last picture of the little marsupial:-) I think they are cute and kind of fearsome looking at the same time. I’ll be skipping that recipe… cause I think they’re cute… yeah, that’s the ticket:-)
storybeader
most of my life, I’ve lived IN town. So I don’t see a lot of wild animals. And I think that little opossum is ugly! Just my H.O. {:-Deb
Jim
1. We’ve found several sorts of varnmints in our backyard. Possums were there at our old house, terrible looking creatures. Racoons were there too and four ended up trapped after they went for an outing while living in our attic.
Mrs. Jim found a mama armadilla with her babies in the flower garden. Mama wouldn’t shoo!
Adi, our beagle was out chasing a fox one day too.
And then this morning Mrs. Jim found a mouse in the garage. He went into hiding.
2. We live outside the city, 50 miles north of Houston, Texas, in a subburb. Our house backs onto a golf course which around a corner fronts a lake.
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Jo
I think they are ugly little critters, and I will pass on the soup … i’m on the side of a mountain … we get just about everything … rodents are the most popular, mountian lions and bobcats have been around but are rare, and bears play in the park across the street …
beckyp
The first time I had ever seen a possum it was on my back porch. I had no idea what the heck it was and shooed if off with a broom.
JDaniel4's Mom
I don’t think I will try the soup! I so enjoyed this post though.
Lola
I’ll pass on the soup too (though great images!)
Happy A-Thursday!
Sue
Ugh on the possum recipe. And I don’t like the looks of that one you have a close-up of, either!
😉
PS. We get skunks a lot.
anitamombanita
no possum soup for me either. They’re cute in an ugly sort of way. But they’re also pretty destructive if they get inside your walls, attic, etc. I prefer to think of them as you’ve shown them in the little cartoon clip and with grannie clampett! 🙂
Jen
Super cute post…but no soup for me. My daughter almost hit one in the road the other night as it dashed across. We were both grossed out by that little rodent thing! Yikes!