you forgot about the possum?

There is this pesky black cat that thinks it should hang out in our back yard all night. He has been sleeping on our porch rocker and pooping in our garden. As ya'll know, that is one thing I cannot abide. That cat has got to go!

Dave, my gallant hero, borrowed a live trap from a guy in our branch. We have been baiting it every night with cat food. We managed to catch the cat one night and we were so proud of ourselves.

We sprayed him with water and hoped that would teach him his lesson, then set him loose.

BIG mistake.

He comes back each night, hairs up our rocker cushions and sprays everywhere, nibbles the cat food trail Dave lays out in front of the trap, then runs away. He even has the audacity to roam the yard while Jed and I are on our daily walk, but when he sees us coming across the field, he runs away. Dave has taken to shooting at him with broadhead arrows whenever Dave sees him. That only encourages this awful cat's daring!

And so we keep setting the trap. Just because the cat manages to stay out doesn't mean that other wildlife is able to do so. Yesterday morning, we were rewarded with this lovely specimen:

Yup, a possum. A nasty, dirty, tail-like-burlap, possum. It gave me the willies just looking at it.

Dave and Jed were totally enthralled, of course.

This is the second possum we have trapped. I am pretty sure they're not the same possum, since the other one looked a lot younger. We took this guy down a country road and let him go.

I'm not sure what bothers me more--that we can't catch the cat, or that all these critters are roaming our neighborhood in the middle of the night. Tonight, we're baiting the trap with salmon (sweetening the pot, so to speak) but I'm a little afraid of what we'll catch. Racoon? Coyote? It's anyone's guess in the wilds of East Texas!