Yesterday morning as usual I was sitting here staring out the window at the darkness waiting for daylight & drinking coffee. A couple hours later when it finally got a bit light enough to see a bit I noticed something that looked out of place out by the old apple tree. It didn't move after 15 minutes & I decided it was just a pile of dirt from moles that are tearing the lawn up. Ten minutes later it was gone.   I kept watching & it appeared again coming from under the low hanging limbs of the fir trees. I knew it was a varmint then. I couldn't tell what it was even by using the 10x binoculars. Muffin was up by 8 AM & looked at it & said it was a possum. I thought it was a groundhog eating apples but groundhogs are in hibernation & there was a big frost. My eyes are really bad in low light. It kept going & coming from under the fir trees. Around 10;30 I picked up one of the 410 shotguns & went out to see what the difugilty was. It always came out & laid down with it's nose to the ground. When I was 10 feet away it paid no attention to me till I stomped my foot. It turned it's head & gave me a baleful stare. When it bunched it;s muscles & started getting it's feet placed I unloaded the 410 in it. I still don't know what was wrong with it  but suspect it had rabies. Doesn't matter any more now. I noticed it had no tail. .......Paul H

Bury it deep.






Kudos to you for the use of the word "difugilty" Paul.  I can't remember when/where I heard it last, but it's been awhile ago.  Like 4 decades or more I think.

I had forgotten it existed, to be honest with you.

Jamie270, I suspect the word "difugilty" is older than the hills. My daughter, a teacher, tells me there is no such word. I ask her if there is no such word, why does it exist? Old timers in the Appalachian mountains of SE Kentucky used it often. It is a self explaining word meaning many things depending on the situation. I suppose it's used most for the word "problem." In a question it can be used to inquire about a problem, difficulty, situation or a host of other things. I never heard anyone outside the mountains use it until 1957 while I was in the Navy. On the ship a fellow used the word and I asked him where he was from. He replied he was from Harlan Co. Kentucky which is the neighboring county to Bell Co. where I was born & raised. He was of Indian descent. Cherokee I think. Small world we live in. ......On another note, it looks like I posted the same picture of the possum twice. Apparently even my eyes stutter. All the pictures I took look pretty much alike.......Paul H

Well Paul, this may make sense to you as well then.
My mother's mother was from Kentucky, going back many generations.  

Supposedly, we're direct descendants of the Boone family.  Her maiden name was Naill. (or Nale I'm not certain which)

I am pretty sure it was my mom who I heard use the word last, and she passed away in 1986, so it was undoubtedly some time before that.

Thank goodness we don't need to mess with rabies here in Oz.

Jorge, are you saying you don't have rabies in Oz.?  I always thought any country had cases of rabies. Here in the USA I suspect rabies are prevalent mostly in the canine species but lately it appears to be common in the liberal, socialist politicians too. ......Back in the late 1940; and early 1950's we had a rabies epidemic in SE Kentucky. Mostly in dogs and foxes. Things got really bad for a long time. ......Paul H

Hi Paul H,

Internet extract, not my words:

"Rabies virus does not currently occur in land dwelling animals in Australia but Australian bat lyssavirus (ABLV) does occur in bats in Australia, and can be transmitted from bats to humans and to other animals. Only three cases of human infection with ABLV have been recorded since the virus was first identified in 1996."