a story

It was the Fourth of July and I had to take care of a few things so I could go on a big trip to California.  First on the list was to retrieve two wire cages I had used to protect the peach trees from deer.  This year the deer had knocked the cages over, stolen the peaches, and almost destroyed the trees.

As I turned the truck around and backed into the yard, a saw another problem to solve.  A possum had crawled into the compost bin to feed on my kitchen scraps and now he was stuck.  He was hanging down, suspended, some part of his body caught in between the two panels of the bin.  He looked up at me as I got out of the truck.  “Great!  Now I have to try to save you.”

I walked over to take a look and thought he had his foot caught.  I went in the house for a pair of gloves – just in case, texted my cousins asking for help, and then gathered tools.  I thought that I might be able to pop the bin apart and free him. After several attempts with varying sizes of pry bars, I discovered that I couldn’t pull it apart, and that his weight on the bin was a problem.

I went into the shed for boards and a container the height of his stuck appendage. I pushed the container as close to him as I could and then used a board to ease him up, sliding the container closer until he was resting on top.  I then saw what was caught.  It was not his foot, but instead his testicles.  At this point he was baring his teeth and drooling.  I talked calmly letting him know I meant him no harm.  I then went back to trying to pry the bin apart, but I just wasn’t strong enough. 

He was resting on boards and a container that allowed him to lay down rather than hang.  I decided I needed to walk away for a bit to think about what I could do.  I went to do another job.

Thoughts about the situation would not go away. He looked to me like he would soon be laying down to die. Without freedom, he would die slowly and sadly.   I didn’t want him to suffer and I wondered what I needed to do.  The flies were already starting to swarm around him.  Should I put him out of his misery?  I couldn’t imagine how I would do that.  Maybe I could perform an amputation.  But how would I stop the bleeding? 

My thoughts were interrupted by a phone call.  My cousins were there.  By the time, I got back to the house, the possum was free.  Bill had put on gloves and held the critter up, patting him, and talking softly to calm him.  Jeanne put muscle behind a crowbar and Bill lifted him out.  He carried him into the woods and set him on the ground.  The possum was dazed, but in a minute sauntered off into the woods.

When I got home, I used tape to cover all the cracks in the bin so no one else would get stuck.  The dharma for me in this was thinking about what part of the experience was the coiled rope and not the snake!  All in a day’s work on the farm.