The other old man possum, the one that looks like a well loved teddy bear.
He's not patchy, per se. He has scars from previous encounters, and due to his age, as much as anything, parts of his fur have turned red. He's not so much a patchwork quilt as a well loved toy.
He turned up with a very sore left front paw, whimpering as he went, and holding it elevated when he sat.
Not that this stopped him from charging around, trying to evade Miss Takeaway, when she decided that he was persona, or perhaps possum, non grata. They took a day or so to sort themselves out; establishing the usual possum detente - If I pretend that I can't see you then you're not there, but of course, ideally, you could not be there, wherever "there" is, relative to me.
He set himself up in the Toffee house.
The Toffee house is a standard box arrangement, with a doorway, but It's built "larger", to accommodate a mother with a young one - with wider doorway, and a taller ceiling, for comfort. If she's carrying a little one in her pouch, a wider doorway provides a greater degree of comfort, and a taller doorway is better if she has a little one on her back.
I added on to the doorway - two vertical panels, essentially making the doorway/entrance corridor longer.
It reduces the amount of light coming in through the doorway, and nominally adds some "privacy" - the doorway to the sleeping chamber is large, too, so I thought it best to add on to the existing short entrance corridor.
They're pieces of wood with L shaped brackets attached, that are screwed to the verandah of the house. One could be forgiven for saying cheap and cheerful, ha ha.
One sits perfectly square, the other leans out, away from the doorway at a very slight angle - it's the one that took the full brunt of the running possum, one evening, when chase was being given. They're not gentle!
Enough about the house. The old man came, and stayed a couple of days. They seem to do that - I'm injured, I'm obviously distressed by that, what would be best for me would be to take some time and rest, so, in a couple of days I'm going to develop an air of stoicism, and leave.
So he did.
That didn't stop him from becoming a fairly frequent visitor, though.
One on of his visits he met young MacBeth, and and behaved like the consummate gentleman, which no doubt impressed her no end.
He was here when she came into season, and was wooed by other young men.
They run. They run and they run.
At one point the poor old boy had to stop and literally take a breather; he'd been running so hard he was literally puffing and panting.
The night wore on, and from what little I could see, it seemed like he stuck around, so I'm assuming that he slept in the Toffee house, again. Come the next evening, he was gone, but not for long, as I think it was either that night or the next, that he turned up grab a bite to eat.
Will I see him again? It's the same question with Red, actually, it's the same question with Kogan. They're males, it seems that they roam over a fair area, and this is one of many places of interest on their itineraries.
Nuts is the exception the rule, but I think that has a lot to do with his "nest" being fairly close by - he knows convenience, when he sees it, ha ha.
The first night he was here, I was under the bridge when he came out of the house. I remember he walked out, and as he walked along the bridge he looked down at me with an expression of "Oh look, a person, that's nice..". I knew where I fitted in, in the larger, possum scale of things - on par with the garden furniture, ha ha. Something interesting, but not something to worry about.
One night, but I can't remember exactly where in the time scale, he got into a fight with another male. At first it was a lot of growling, and chasing, but at some point they managed to both end up wrestling, curled in a ball, up against the house.
I'd gone out to see what all the noise was about, and found them entangled.
I started laughing, which stopped them, and both of them looked at me as if to say "Okay, what's so funny?".
I told them that I had a fleeting thought of threatening to turn the hose on them, but seeing as they were right under the garden tap, that had fast become a ridiculous idea.
One grunted, let go of the other, and stalked off, obviously not appreciating the humour of the situation.
The other one got up, charged after the first and slapped him on the thigh, as if to say "You're it!", then the running and grunting and snarling began, again, off in the darkness, somewhere.
I was thinking about young Donny, and why she's living here, speaking of convenience. It may simply be that there's nowhere for her to go; it could be a question of it being a tight accommodation market.The simple fact is that there's nothing available, out there.
She's moved into the Brown house, under the pergola, next to the house. I think it got a little too cold to stay out in the Honey house, and anyway, the distance between the doorway and her breakfast is measurably shorter. She's a practical thinker, like her Mum, ha ha.
I took advantage of it being dry, yesterday, and replaced a section of bridge. It's a fairly high traffic piece. It was two garden stakes screwed together, about 4cm across, now it's 9cm, thereabouts, across, a much better width, according to Takeaway.
She can grab hold of the sides of the plank (2cm thick), and scoot along it like a like a little hairy monorail. Except for last night.
Last night, because it was new, it had to be scent marked, using the scent gland on her chest, so it wasn't so much a monorail as a cross between a dot matrix printer and an earth moving machine. It's a very strange sight, watching a possum push it's chest along a plank, the whole six foot length of it.
It's not like he bites them, it seems to be a phase he's going through, so now we'll have to hide the fruit bowl somewhere else ... 
