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Post by Scottthetrapper on Dec 22, 2005 22:34:36 GMT -5
Christmas Tree Possum Surprises Pa. Teen
Thursday, December 22, 2005 ENGLEWOOD, Pa. - Mary Kathleen O'Connor, 16, doing some studying for school about 6 a.m. Tuesday, said she was the first to be startled by an apparent Christmas tree stowaway.
"I'm looking at the tree and the angel just pops off," she said. "And a second later, this head just popped up. The eyes were, like, glowing. I was thinking, 'Oh my God!' And I screamed."
Other family members came running. "We looked at it and I thought it might have been a fake," said her father, Michael O'Connor, a Frackville attorney. "But then it moved its head. And I thought 'Holy Jeez. We're in trouble.'"
O'Connor called police, and William E. O'Donnell, a state Game Commission deputy wildlife conservation officer, removed an 18-inch-long opossum from the 8-foot Douglas fir the family had bought, bundled, from a dealer in Seltzer.
O'Donnell caged the animal and released it in woods about five miles away. The tree, meanwhile, was still in the front yard where Patricia had hurled it. "The lights are still on it," Michael O'Connor said. "So is the stand."
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Post by Scottthetrapper on Dec 22, 2005 22:47:27 GMT -5
A few days ago I looked out my front door and watched this small possum go by. He was headed for the trash cans for dinner. He went by a couple more times in a short while, then I didn't see him anymore. Karen was cooking dinner and turned around and the possum was on the stairs coming up from the basement. She screamed and sent me into the cellar after the little bugger. After some searching I found him. I thought,'Holy Jeez. We're in trouble." Me, being the trapper I am, called the police, and William E. O'Donnell, a PA State Game Commission deputy wildlife concervation officer, removed a 15- inch long possum from under an ice sled, bought at Bass Pro Shops in Auburn. ;D The ice sled, meanwhile, is still in the basement right where I put it.
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Post by Scottthetrapper on Dec 22, 2005 23:07:00 GMT -5
I have named the possum, 'Pogo' and he visits the trash cans regularly.
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Post by Scottthetrapper on Dec 22, 2005 23:09:43 GMT -5
I believe this possum to be a spirit sent to me by a friend from Star Lake.
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Post by mole on Dec 23, 2005 4:45:38 GMT -5
Many years ago the northern adirondacks was home to a large population of the very exotic Opossum. The severe winters here was causing extreme hardship on these wonderful little creatures. It was these events that led to the birth of the very first animal welfare orginization;The United Possom Society of the world. It was with great planning and a whole lot of love that all of these wonderful little creatures were rounded up and transported to areas that was more friendly and where they could prosper. It was with great saddness for the people here to see the last of their beloved O'possums leave but they knew in their hearts that it was a far better thing that they had done. The United Possom society is still hard at work to see that their beloved little creatures are well taken care of. You,yourself may be visited by a member of the United Possum Society someday soon. You will recognise their official vehicles when it stops in front of your house, it will be brown and have the official logo on the side UPS. Please welcome it with open arms,for you may just be the new caretaker of one of the most beloved creatures of the world. Merry Christmas Ed
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Post by Itrapny on Dec 23, 2005 7:49:45 GMT -5
;DI think we need to move this thread to trapline stories
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Post by brushwolf on Dec 23, 2005 7:51:12 GMT -5
You guys crack me up ;D ;D ;D ;D
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Post by deepsleep on Dec 23, 2005 17:41:00 GMT -5
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Post by Scottthetrapper on Dec 23, 2005 22:37:49 GMT -5
In the beginning of the possum shipping of years gone by, possum barrens ruled the possum shippers with a heavy hand. They were only concerned with getting possum into new lands. For this they received 1 possum stamp per possum package delivered. The stamp could then be used as barter for other goods. The barrens only gave the shippers 1 stamp for every 20 stamps received. The shippers were often called stupid by those that trapped the possum. Many times a shipper would hear," hey, stupid possum shipper", as they rode by on horse back with their packages of possums. Now those who trapped the possum were in cahoots with the barrens and would often leave the possums packaged all over the roads, making the shippers search for their deliveries. Sometimes the possum would die from being boxed and not found in time. This would forfeit the possum stamp to the barren. The barrens not wanting this to happen set up possum storage areas along designated areas on the possum route. These areas would often have 20 or more boxed possum waiting delivery, placed there by the trappers. One stormy day, a possum storage area was washed out by the storm. 25 possum died and the barrens lost 25 possum stamps. With this the barrens erected buildings. They called them possum storage offices as there was also paper work that went along with the shipping of possum. The shippers often abbreviated this to Po. St. Office. If you were to receive a possum you could go to the PoSt Office and pick it up. The shippers being tired of being jipped by the barrens decided to unionize. This would eventually lead to the tariff being raised from 1 possum stamp to 37 possum stamps per delivery. Possum shippers were also armed they would carry high power rifles to protect their daily comings and goings. Sometimes after being called," stupid possum shippers" enough times by the trappers they would go after the trappers with the rifles. The first trapper killed was Tim Albertson. The morning paper the next day wrote," Possum Shippers > Tim Albertson." With the abbreviations of the day, this became the "PO.S.> T. AL. From then on every time a possum shipper would go after a trapper or group of trappers or suspected trappers it would be known as going PoSTAL. Now the Union of Stupid Possum Shippers didn't like this labeling and went to the U.S. Government which quickly took over the U.S.P.S. NOW you know the rest of the story....
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Post by Itrapny on Dec 23, 2005 22:44:25 GMT -5
Scott you're kill'in me
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Post by squirrelkiller on Dec 24, 2005 8:55:01 GMT -5
;D ;D ;D Were do you guys come up with this stuff? ;D ;D ;D
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Post by Scottthetrapper on Dec 25, 2005 15:56:26 GMT -5
Up North in the early pre-Rudolph days in the town of Suum, Antarctica, before electricity and headlights, there was an animal breeder named Chris Cringle. Chris was an amateur animal breeder and a full time list maker. Once a year he would go around the world and gather information for his lists. For this information he would exchange gifts. He had many lists, but is mainly known for his "Naughty or Nice List". Now Chris was always looking for shortcuts, trying to get his once a year job done in one night. His father was a coach maker and built him a fancy sleigh to travel in. This helped. At first the sleigh was pulled by dogs. This often left Chris missing some homes or spending up to twelve days to finish his job. He also found that his lists often suffered and were not that accurate. He knew there had to be a better way. He next tried reindeer. They were a little faster but still limited. They were powerful and he found that he needed only eight to pull the sleigh comfortably, but the days he spent working also coincided with deer season. He would often get shot at while gathering information in some of the more remote areas. He even lost some deer, which was quite a hardship as he needed eight to pull the sleigh. Many times after one of the deer was shot, the hunters would track it, seeing the rest of the sleigh-pullers mulling around, they'd shoot them all. He knew there had to be a better way. Then he came up with the idea that if he could get airborne he could make this faster. He tried crows at first, but they were hard to control and seemed to have a mind of their own, flying every which way. It also took way too many. Next he tried geese. These were easy to control and he didn't need as many to pull his sleigh. If he could only cross a goose with a reindeer he would have the perfect sleigh pulling animal. Many years of experimenting went into developing the now famous,’ reindeer goose' which still pulls Chris' sleigh. It looks like a deer but flies and sounds like a goose. He also found that these deer-geese were not shot at. No hunter would want to explain to the rest of his hunting party, "yea, I heard it honking and then it flew right over me. What a rack." They would be accused of being drunk and not allowed in the hunting party any longer. This method of gathering information worked well for Chris, but there were some flaws. The major one being that when he was overhead some of the houses were hard to see. He asked that all the people that were giving info to him put candles in the windows so he could find the homes better. This worked to some extent but Chris' eyes weren't that good and he would still miss some houses. He tried to develope the reindeer-geese to have better eyesight but he never could get it to his liking. One night while working by candle light in his breeders shop he noticed that rats were often attracted to the light put off by the candles. He had an idea that if he developed those rats to actually point at the direction of the light he could use them on his sleigh to find the houses. He developed the rats to point with their noses and to remain completely motionless when the saw the light and found that a moving light would actually make them hold completely still, looking right at the direction of the oncoming light, as if they were mesmerized. The pointing rats were small so Chris bred them for size. When he got them to the size he had wanted, he tested them out. He found that a rat about 5 times the original size was right for what he needed. He built a shelf in front of where he sat on the sleigh, so that the rats would have a place to sit while looking for the lights needed to find the houses. Now the sleigh had two candles for headlights and the newly developed pointing rats only pointed at those candles. Chris took the headlights off the sleigh and it worked. The rats pointed to the candles at each house. It was dark at night, some nights darker than others, and the rats were of a dark color. It was sometimes hard for Chris to see them pointing and he often brought the sleigh down to an area where there was no one there. This cost valuable time. He moved the rats closer together in front of him and on his red wool suite put white cuffs. He could then see the rats pointing in contrast to his cuffs. Every time the rats pointed, however, they would see those white cuffs and thinking it was a meal, take a nip at Chris' wrists. He tried many different configurations, moving the rats from here to there, but nothing seem to work the way he wanted. He then figured that if he could hang them from a bar, instead of placing them on a shelf, this might keep him from getting bit. He hung them from the end of their tail, but the size of the pointing rats still allowed them to reach over and nip his wrist. Every time he would get bit at he would wind the rat one more turn around the bar to get them a little further away from his hands. This caused the rats to develop strong muscles in their tails. Chris found that when he bred those rats that the strong tail remained and was to his advantage. He could now rap the tails around the bar and with little pinning keep the rats there. During this breeding, quite by accident, he came up with one rat that had a pink nose. This rat was easier for Chris to see while flying in the dark and he bred the rest of the rats to have that trait. This allowed him to place the rats further away from his hands and kept down on the biting. He also was breeding them lighter in color. This allowed him to see them better under different atmospheric conditions. He found that a pure white rat was the easiest, most of the time, but if he had a little black mixed in this was optimum. He called this color phase opal and the rats were known as opal pointing rats. By this time the tails had grown so strong that pinning was no longer necessary. He could just wrap the tail around the positioned bar in front of him and they would stay put. Some times when Chris would touch down the rats would quickly run from the sleigh into the nearest woods. Chasing after them was time consuming and they were so fast that he had a hard time catching them. He found that sometimes colored paper made it easier to catch them and that boxes would, also, sometimes work. He then put the colored paper on the boxes and this seemed to work even better. The rats were quick and when captured would sometimes would tear the paper from the boxes. Once the boxes or paper was torn it would no longer help in the catching of the rats. Chris would discard the boxes and paper, leaving a big mess. Something had to be done, so he bred the opal pointing rats to be slower. He found that by breaking one toe on each hind foot that the opal pointing rats couldn't run away as fast. In fact they became quite slow. This worked most of the time but still some got away and Chris was forced to carry many extra rats along his route. The people he gathered the information from, laughed at Chris for the mess that he was causing. When he chased the opal pointing rats, he would leave discarded boxes and papers all over, and garbagemen would spend days cleaning them up. They designated the time of year that he would come around as "Chris' mess" and the new animal in the woods as the "Opal Pointing Rats of Suum". Chris was well versed in using traps to capture animals for his amateur breeding purposes and later found that a foothold trap set next to a dirthole with some fox-pee in it was the easiest way to catch the Opal pointing rats. This set was first developed by Chris in the attempt to recapture his misgivings and later used by others to attempt to capture other critters. Most of the people didn't like having a new "rat" running around, so they shorten the name from "Opal Pointing Rat of Suum" to "opporasuum". This made it easier for them to take the mess that Chris had made and the new animal wasn't as highly feared. He did give gifts and this was good. The people however would no longer give information as freely to Chris and his business suffered. He did keep his "Naughty and Nice" list going and still does to this day. For his introduction of the opporasuum he still tries to compensate with the delivery of gifts every year, but only for those who make his list. Opporasuum has since been shorten to the name we call them by now, possum. The Opal Pointing Rats are no longer used in house detection by Chris as modern GPS units have deemed them unnecessary, but he still carries a few incase of battery failure. So when you are opening your boxes, covered with colored paper containing gifts delivered by a guy in a red wool suit with white cuffs in a sleigh pulled by flying reindeer, or out checking a "canine" set with the non-target "Opal Pointing Rat of Suum" held firmly in it's jaws, remember how those "possum" helped in starting it all. ;D
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Post by tommy on Dec 25, 2005 17:35:07 GMT -5
I can tell from reading this above stuff that Mole and Scott need something to do. Now there must be someone out there that has allot of frozen pelts that need fleshing and stretching. It would be a good thing to put these two to work. goodness knows what they will be up to next if someone doesn't save them......think of it as a act of kindness.
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Post by mole on Dec 25, 2005 18:10:22 GMT -5
Chriss and his wife Craft had a rather large family,Chriss himself had six brothers older than himself. All of Chriss's children helped in the famly bussiness and were quite happy to do so. a few went on to college and acquired extra talents. One went to Syracuse university and studied medicine. When he returned home he helped with the family bussiness and cared for the residents of the area. He was affectionally known as Doc. Another son traveled to Africa as a minister of the Faith. He was bitten by a tse-tse fly and got sleeping sickness and had to return home for his health. One sone due to his uplifting outlook on life became a stand up comic and he was quite happy to do this. The real attribute to the family was the youngest son who was born a deaf-mute. He attended many schools to help him over come his handicap. It was found that this young man was nothing short of a genius. He knew of his fathers past problems with transportation and he vowed to se to it that nothing like that would ever happen again. The first thing he did was develop a universal sign language so that all people in the world could communicate freely. The united nations accepted his program with open arms and asked him how could they be of any assistance. Dopiea responded with an idea to further propogate the much needed Opossum. This was disscussed at the next governing board meeting. A certain group of individuals saw that there was a great deal of money to be made here. They stared a fillibuster to shadow their dirty deeds. While the world waited for the outcome these certain individuals set up a union to control all possum bussiness in the world. They are now in full control of the possum market in the world. If you dont recieve the money you think you should get for your hard earned possom catch you can blame the Opossum Exporting Countries Union. or what we know as OPEC. ;D
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