Hi all - I was delighted to see two baby opossum feeding on our ground corn this morning -- I usually see more wildlife at this time of year, when the food in the woods is getting scarce. These guys ambled up this trumpet vine, and were hanging around as our Basset Hounds raised a racket - of course, never getting close. They were very calm, and once I put the dogs in the house, ambled back down and finished their dinner before heading back up into the woods. Aren't they cute? Dax
Awwww...isn't that sweet!
OMG! What a great shot. They are SO cute.
They look so safe and secure up there. I'd bet that they have been through visits with your dog before and knew that it would be OK.
Dax... you sure do get the wild life. Those little guys are cute....
Wasn't it Cheryl who said... only a face a mother could love?? but all babies are cute.
I was wondering if you ever got the Owl babies this summer?
Terese,
That was before I knew how cute the babies are, but I do stand by my comment that opossum is an acquired 'taste' (and I don't mean that last word literally).
Hi - Juneybug - I think you're right -- they have probably had other encounters with Sherlock and Olivia as they did not seem that bothered with them at all.
And Terese - I never got any shots of baby owls last year as the nest was about 100 feet up, and they were very well protected by their parents -- but I've learned if I wait long enough, I will eventually get an opportunity for a shot. Since Barred Owls stick to their territory, and I've seen them overhead this year, I'll just be patient. I'll be sure to post any once I get a chance to get a pic or two.
It's interesting that I've not had any problem with grackles, starlings or crows at my feeders -- I think that the raptors (owls and a Cooper's Hawk) keep them moving on -- Yay!! I even had a mature eagle fly over and rest awhile in the trees behind the house. We are about a mile from the river -- I wish our trees were large enough to support one of those nests!!
Here's a pic of one of the owls from this year -- (s)he is certainly watching out for prey --
Dax
Those are likely about 5 month old "babies". the really precious ones aare the tiny babies who still cling for life to mom's fur riding on her back. I raised thm when I did Wildlife Rehab and they are absolutely my most favorite animal. Very docile and sweet, inspite of their "gaping" when afraid and showing all 50 of those fierce teeth. but if you reached around them to touch the til or back end, they would totlly wimp out and play dead or "possum" as they really are big babies!!
Sopme day I will find out what i have to do to get my 35 mm's converted to dig and post some of my very precious pics of my very 1st possum rescue (he could almost entirely fit on the lense cap of my camera and also post the pic of Winkin, Blinkin & Nod the next set (triplets, no doubt) that I reared.
Sheri
Sheri,
I've seen advertisements for 35mm conversion, so I know it's available. If you have negatives, I think any photo store can make digitals for you. For a quick and dirty 'fix' to post a few favs - and I know we would all LOVE to see them - I have been known to scan my old photos, either on a flatbed scanner or the 3-in-1 printer/copier/scanners that are everywhere these days. A few seconds can time and 'poof' you have a digital image of the photo. It's not as good as a professional job but works in a pinch.
Those tiny baby opossums sound oh, so, adorable, BTW.
well....my house is horribly disorganized...so when I Do find those negs, I will defffinately get them converted.
I think that I can more likely locate some pics and will scan them to hopefully share em with you all !
LOL, Sheri,
I can totally relate to the house thing. For a while now I've been trying to get mine back into some kind of organization, but I can surely relate to not knowing where such things as old photos are located.
That said, I really would love to see any photos you do manage to locate. : )
I truly wish that I could get one of those TV shows to do my house. I would haave no problem at all opening up my "can of worms" for the world to see in trade for an organized
dream mak over. I wonder how they select their candidates??
Clean House gives contact info at the end of the show. They might even have it on the website, too, assuming they have one. Like most things, they are based in CA and appear to favor CA homes for most episodes, but they do travel to other areas on occasion. In addition to the regular shows, they have now expanded to include a separate show for houses deemed messiest. I think those are usually chosen from across the US.
If you are serious, your best bet would be to photograph or videotape the messy rooms in your house and check the websites for info on where to send it. Who knows. If you can show them a really interesting and disastrous mess, maybe they will contact you. However, I watched a few episodes of Clean House, and from what I noticed they seem to favor families. But there is nothing to loose in trying.
I think Oprah does a 'thing' with Container Store.... a place i could spend ALL DAY and spend a fortune!!
but yes... photos and video would help.
Then there is that "How clean is your house" team from BBCA. They are more into filth than clutter, but I see a distinct overlap. Many of the homes on their shows are quite cluttered, and frequently there is little difference between the "Clean House" homes and the "How Clean is Your House" homes. Although they are British, they do shows in the US, too, so you might want to check them out. One plus for this show is that whereas "Clean House" seems to prefer families, this show mostly features homes with only 1 resident, sometimes 2. Again, check websites as I suspect most will give info on how to submit your info for consideration.
There is also a Hoarders series, not sure what channel, maybe A&E but don't hold me to that. Some of the houses they do are outrageously cluttered with things piled to the ceiling but others are less severe. You may not be a hoarder, but if you have lots of clutter, it's worth a try. It's TV, after all, so they can label you as they like as long as they clean the house, right? They send a team in to clean and organize.
If you are serious, I would try them all. Nothing to loose.
I sure want to change, Don't think I am so much a hoarder as just a cluttered no organization skills... er...u...maybe that is a hoarder. I deffinately do not have filth around or bad litter pans or anywhere's near some of the states of the homes sometimes depicted........
Sheri,
Just wanted to let you know that I wasn't making any such assumptions or judging in any way. Like I said, I'm working on cleanup here, too, right now. I started with Clean House because it's the 'cleanest' one of the ones I've seen, and by 'cleanest' I mean that they are looking more at profound clutter vs filth and/or hoarding issues. I just figured I would give you the info on all of the ones I've seen, and let you be the judge of what might or might not fit.
Also, all of the shows I've seen vary. Most episodes show fairly severe situations, but I've seen the occasional one that's more like 'normal bad' vs off the charts. The BBCA show is often so horrid that I can't have that on while I'm eating, not even a cracker or other light snack. But those ladies also tend to get all out of sorts when they see a dust film or some cobwebs in an unused room. I've been guilty of a little dust here and there and the occasional cobweb myself.
When you work and you're busy, it happens. Dirt and clutter also happen when you suffer a period of debilitating pain that keeps you from getting things done. That's how my house got messy, and I sort of figured you might have had a similar situation. Before the knee and back problems, I was running around the house pushing a swifter every time I saw a little dust and cringing when anyone walked on the floor wearing shoes, so I totally understand how circumstances can sometimes make it impossible for us to keep house as we would like.
As for the hoarding thing, I didn't even suspect you were a hoarder. Like I said, I was just giving you all the info I had and letting you decide. I was thinking if you, for instance, had a mess because pain made it difficult for you to clean, you might be able to cache it as "hoarding" for purposes of getting them to clean it up for you. LOL. It's a tv show. Who cares if you fudged a little.
It seems to me that what largely defines the serious, pathological hoarding cases [on the show] is a tendency to keep absolutely everything, even such absolute trash as the boxes and packages food, long ago eaten, came in. I'm talking every magazine, newspaper, used can, bottle, etc, even the box last year's ho-ho's came in. Many of these people tend to have every centimeter of the floor covered in stuff, so much stuff that they can't possibly use any of it because they can't find it. Many have things piled so high it's hazardous and only have narrow passages for moving around the house. In some cases it's like reuse and recycling gone to the ultimate extreme. Another thing that defines the hoarders on the show is that they tend to have an emotional attachment to the stuff such that they can't let go of the trash even when the show is providing them with a free cleanup team.
I just cleaned a bunch of cardboard out of the garage, cut down boxes, and carted it all to the recycling center. I didn't have any attachment to that stuff, and I would have been thrilled if someone would have sent a cleanup team over here to clean the garage for me. It just piled up during the time when my back and knee pain made it impossible for me to get things done. That's an example of how one can have something that might look the same on video (I'm sure I could have sent photos of my garage to a 'garage cleanup show' and gotten in) without really being due to hoarding.
Ok, hopefully that's enough said. We're not judging or even assuming we know what your house looks like or what you define as 'cluttered'.
