Sarah Has Spoken!

And the winner is . . . (drum roll) . . . uh . . . (more drum roll) . . . uh . . . Cut!

I can't go right into announcing the winner. Nobody does that. First you have to read some of my "stuff". And for today, I've decided to keep a promise I made weeks ago. I'm going to tell you my story about petting a wild possum.

Dee and I were building a little house out in the country. I think it was house number 3 (We've built 11) We'd bought a used motor home to live in while we built. Well, truthfully, we'd bought it to travel in, but found out it got eight miles to the gallon.

The one real trip we took in it was to visit my brother who lived in Florida at the time. We made it as far as Central Louisiana  - about 15 miles from Alexandria, where Dee was raised and his family still lives - when it broke down. For five days we spent most of the day - every day - sitting in the mechanic's shop, because every evening when we'd leave to go to Mama's house the foreman would tell us it would be ready about ten the next morning.

Someone had to taxi us back and forth, so when they dropped us off the next morning, we'd dismiss them and tell them we'd be along in a few minutes. Of course after they left we'd discover there were more complications and it wouldn't be ready for another two hours. When those two hours were up, it would be another two hours, and so on until it was time to leave for the evening again. We never made it to Florida, and didn't even get to enjoy our visit in Louisiana. It took some of the shine off of being a motor home owner, that's for sure.

But I digress . . .

One day we worked late into the evening. The porch light was on at the house we were building. Both the house and the motor home were facing the road, which left the front of the motor home in total darkness. The awning was extended and our Bar-B-Q pit was set up on the patio. We kept the cat's food on top of the pit (when it wasn't lit, of course) so the dog couldn't get it.

I headed for the motor home to get something. When I zipped around the corner into total darkness, it took a minute to sort things out. There sat our cat on top of the Bar-B-Q pit having a snack.

"Hi, baby, having a late supper?" I rubbed my hand down it's back.

Oh oh! Didn't feel like cat fur to me. Yet, in my stupor I stood there with my hand on it's back, while my eyes adjusted. A humongous possum's white face came into focus. He stared at me. I stared at him. I'm sure he was as shocked as I was when we recognized each other. He didn't hiss. He didn't move.

I pulled my hand back and excused myself and he went back to eating.I mean these kinds of things happen every day, don't they?

Wake up the drummer!

And the winner is . . . Hit it!  . . . (Drum roll) . . . Hold it. Sarah, would you like to make this announcement?

No? She worn out from checking the trash cans.

Okay. The winner is . . . wait. I gotta tell you what a bang-up job Sarah did in picking the winner. She nosed around in the trash can for several minutes before making her choice. (If she could read, I'd say this was rigged.) After carefully selecting the designated winner she headed for the bedroom. "No, wait! You gotta let me read it. You're supposed to lay it down next to the trash can the way you always do."

Under the bed. You heard me, she took it under the bed. I was a little frantic at this point, so she thought I was mad at her and no amount of coaxing would bring her out from under the bed. If I walked away, she might totally eat it, and I wouldn't know who won, except through the process of elimination.

Dee ran to the kitchen for a dog treat. Yay! That did the trick. She came out . . .but she didn't bring the slip of paper with her. So, I had to reach under with a back scratcher and pull out the mangled entry.

Okay. The winner is LOOsi GGGEE. Well, that's what it looks like. Oh, that's a tooth hole. And a little slobber. Turn it over.

And the winner is . . . (Drum Roll) . . . Lisa Grace!

Congratulations, Lisa. Your possum is in the mail.

One Week to Go!

As promised, today I'm going to tell you who is doing the drawing for the stuffed possum.

First let me tell you a little bit about her. Born in Oklahoma and raised in Texas - she was given very slim odds of survival at two weeks of age. Unable to suck, it was necessary for her caregivers to find other ways to get nourishment into her body. The fact that she's with us today speaks well of the methods employed.

Lovely red-brown hair. Striking eyes. Beautifully manicured nails, which she maintains herself. And an enthusiasm that has brought her through some tough times, Sarah is the perfect candidate for this job.  Raised in a journalistic environment, she is an authority soi-distant on all things paper-related. In fact her hobby is reaching into a trash can and choosing one particular piece of paper, which she then lays beside the trash can and leaves.

Did I mention Sarah was a dog?

A very smart dog.  She was removed from her mother's care at two weeks of age. One of a litter of fourteen, her litter-mates were dying off one or two a day. I had chosen her and named her at conception (the most dappled female of the litter, please. That she has one blue eye and one hazel eye is an unexpected bonus). I couldn't bear the thought of her dying, although I had not yet met her. So at two weeks, I drove to Oklahoma to visit my granddaughter and two great-grandchildren. And bring Sarah home to Texas.

Neither doll bottles, pet bottles nor baby bottles suited her. She'd either not get enough, or so much would come out it almost drown her. After a harrowing week of diarrhea and/or constipation and struggling to get food down, I put a saucer of milk in front of her. And pushed her nose into it.

She said "Why didn't we do this sooner. I've been hungry for a week." She lapped it down, and hasn't stopped eating since.(She prefers my dinner to hers. Her biggest weakness being a green salad. Extra onion, please.) 

That was two years ago. In the ensuing months, she chewed up an antique chair, our camera/computer cable, our printer cable, our Roland keyboard cable, Dee's HBP machine hose. Chewed holes in the sheet-rock walls and the corners off tables, chairs, and stairs. She was free. I figure she's cost us approximately $2,419.72.

In her on-going effort to offset that expense she's eliminated the need for trips to the vet to have her nails clipped. She bites them off to the perfect length. Every little bit helps.

And I'm happy to report she's given all that chewing up - for paper. She's obsessed with paper. Fetching the morning paper, carrying the mail back from the mail box and checking the trash cans on an hourly basis to be sure there's not too much paper build-up. I don't know what we'd do without her.

Sarah Palin Walding is already anticipating her role in the contest. Let's fill the trash can for her.

I've had some entries and some complaints that readers haven't been able to leave comments. (Well, that's better than complaints about the content of my posts I guess.) And I'm sorry I'm not technologically smart enough to just jump in there and fix it. But I'm working on it.

One of my FB friends put it nicely. "For all my friends who are concerned about my consumption of artificial sweetener, you'll be glad to know that it hasn't had any adverse effect on my  . . . uh . . . my . . . uh . . . thinker thingy."

A Contest! Just in time for Christmas!

Young mothers, I know you want to teach your children to love and respect all of God's creatures. Even the ones that cause you to say "Eww". A visit to "Possums Just Wanna Have Fun" would help them understand some of the mysteries of God's animal kingdom. And teach them that baby possums can be just as cute as baby bunnies. It's true, you know. They start out little and pink, just like bunnies do. In fact, I've not met a baby anything that wasn't cute.

I have an irrational fear of praying Mantises. If one ever got in my hair, I'd probably die on the spot. But a few years back, someone gave me a little matchbox and told me to open it carefully. Inside was a tiny, tiny praying Mantis. As small as a mosquito. And he was praying. I let him walk around on my desk and up and down my fingers. I think if I'd kept him - we might have bonded. (Big Grin). But I didn't know what to feed him, so I released him in the garden and hoped he'd make it. Yes, you read right. I hoped he'd make it.

Regarding possums, most of you have only seen the ugly, skinny looking creatures that roam the night looking for bugs. Okay, granted, they are gross looking. But they have the potential to be beautiful. They are cute as babies. Just as a puppy is.

I had the privilege of rescuing four puppies born to an abandoned dog. They'd never seen a human and when I approached them, they snarled and bit at me. By the time I got all four of them safely in a carrying kennel, my hands were bleeding. And they weren't very pretty either. Bony and matted. Three weeks later they were fattened up, cute and cuddly. It's amazing what a little TLC will do.

Next time you see an ugly possum, think of what he could look like with a little TLC. And if you can't imagine that - look at some of my pics of Soupy.

Now . . . for the contest. Below I've asked three questions. Go to "comments" and leave your name - and a comment if you like. But don't answer the questions there. 


Email me at  lynne@lynnewellswalding.com. Answer the questions and leave your name and a contact address. The winner will be drawn from a list of those correctly answering the questions.

Again - Leave a comment and/or your name in blog comments.
             Leave your answers and your name and contact address at my email address. 
             Easy as that.

Drawing will be held December 14. The possum will go out in the afternoon mail. In time for Christmas. The winner will be announced in this blog on December 15. I'll tell you next week what completely impartial individual will be doing the drawing. You're gonna love it!

And here are the questions:
              Where did I get Soupy?
               Where did I get Squirrel Girl?
               How did Soupy break his leg?


Get ready. Get set. Go!