Garden visitor

Last night we found a garden visitor - a fully grown wombat who let me pat him on the head. I didn't think to take a picture.

Reply to
FarmI
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I had a garden visitor my self yesterday. It scared the crap out of me... A fully grown blue racer snake... A rare visitor in my area. Blue racers here are black, about six feet long and fast two seconds and out of sight. Non poisonous but they can bite. I how ever had no desire to pet it :)

Reply to
Nad R

I have had good luck using used cat litter to keep "visitors" out of my garden.

Reply to
Jeff

You don't worry about rabies?

Reply to
Billy

Wombats are indigenous to Australia which is rabies free.

Reply to
General Schvantzkoph

I assume you mean the old fashion clay litter not the modern clumping litter. I made the mistake of dumping clumping litter down a groundhog hole a few years ago, it turned into a horrible slurry which is still there years later.

Reply to
General Schvantzkoph

What is a wombat?

Reply to
Ruben

I am not sure what a wombat is either!

Reply to
JD

Do either of you know how to use Google?

Reply to
General Schvantzkoph

Reply to
Bill who putters

October 22 - Wombat Day - we'll have to celebrate ;)

Reply to
Frank

A marsupial that is not a possum, so that limits his continent to Australia and it's islands.

Reply to
Doug Freyburger

It is a large herbivorous marsupial found in Australia.

David

Reply to
David Hare-Scott

It appears that Lansing Community College is not strong on teaching research skills.

D
Reply to
David Hare-Scott

There is no rabies in Australia Bily (says she touching wood, crossing herself and throwing salt over her left shoulder!).

Reply to
FarmI

As opposed to the multiple varieties of Australian possums which aren't the same thing at all as US possums.

Reply to
FarmI

One would never ever try to pet a US Possum... They are mean with razor sharp teeth.

Reply to
Nad R

Aussie possums probalby also have sharp teeth but I've not heard of anyone being bitten (although I'm sure it would have happened).

Friends had some significant domestic disbliss in their house with all members of the house accused of eating the best pieces of fruit from the fruit bowl before anyone else could have any with furious denials and counter accusations all round.

After some time, it turned out that the fruit bowl, which used to sit on a table just under an opened unscreened window 2 floors up (in the Aussie tropics), was visited regularly by a possum who ate the best bits.

Another friend whose lady left him and who suffered severe loneliness as a result, took to divering himself by taming a local possum mother and her baby. He took to having dessert on his back deck where he would sit eating his fruit and laying out a slice on the floor for the possum until she became so tame that she'd take it from his hand.

They are very, very cute animals until one has one in the ceiling cavity or attacking one's fruit. At that stage murder is a good option.

Reply to
FarmI

Exactly. Possums of various sorts are on multiple continents. Other marsupials generally not.

Was the wombat eating stuff in your garden or did you get to it in time and relocate it? Being herbivores I would think you don't want any in your garden. I figure they are not as voracious as rabbits but they just might taste somewhat like rabiit. No clue if they are rare enough to be protected.

Reply to
Doug Freyburger

When I was a kid, my grandfather had established a similar relationship with a mama raccoon and her babies at his cabin on a lake in Michigan. We'd sit on the back patio in the summer evening and offer bits of food to the family, and they'd take them from our hands, the babies learning fro their mother. Raccoon hands/paws are very interesting to touch -- leathery and dry. Excellent childhood memory. ;-)

Nowadays in my urban neighborhood, any "wild" animal that would allow one that close is suspect for rabies. A family of raccoons who were living in an abandoned house fairly near me were exterminated because one of them was rabid (which meant all could soon become rabid). I think that was the same family whose babies climbed all over the back of my house and would be deterred by nothing short of my doing my "mean schoolmarm" impression out of a second floor window. While my "mad cat" noises brought no interest from them, that impression of a strict lady in corset and shoes which are too tight who was referring to them as "young man!" scared the bejeezus out of them and sent them hightailing out of my yard.

Saw one possum once, but he was in sad shape, having apparently been attacked by another animal. Similarly we have no skunks now, although we did when I bought my house in 1998.

Priscilla

Reply to
Priscilla H. Ballou

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