Winter was usually slow at the center; Mother Nature took a break from having babies so they got a breather. A few days before Aspen headed back to school she stopped by to help paint with a few volunteers. The main room was a ghost town. To be safe the few animals they had were either moved to the back room or into ISO. Kim, the director already had the walls taped off. Morgan, the shift leader busied herself with regular animal care tasks while Aspen, Mike, and Leo painted. Leo was a new volunteer, he too was in college and he was volunteering in hopes of getting one of the summer internships. As they painted they learned all about Leo. He was from California and was in school to become a wildlife epidemiologist. The first hour was spent discussing white-nose syndrome that had been plaguing bats. As they painted the phone would occasionally ring, but no one came to the door. It was so very different than what Aspen was used to. “By the way,” Mike said, “who’s Vespa is that out there?”
“Mine”, said Leo. “I’m trying to save up money for school. It saves me quite a bit of money, not to mention it reduces my carbon footprint. We each have to do what we can.”
They were almost done painting when Aspen heard the unmistakable lip smacking of Mars the opossum. She squatted to see him just as he approached Leo’s paint pan. “Leo, watch the paint,” Aspen said. Unfortunately, he was not close enough to grab the pan of paint before Mars sniffed and stepped right into it. He quickly realized it was not for him and continued his prowl leaving a few blue paw prints on the floor. Mike swooped in and picked the opossum up.
“Let’s go wash you off,” he said taking Mars to the ISO sink while Leo cleaned up the floor. Aspen followed grabbing a washcloth on the way. She turned on the water and waited for it to get lukewarm before plugging the sink and adding some dish soap. Mike set him in the shallow water. The opossum looked up annoyed. They let his feet soak a minute then used the washcloth to bathe each foot. The opossum looked much smaller wet. Mars was a big handsome male opossum. He had been kept as a pet then surrendered and was much too friendly to be released. He had been on a special diet and exercise plan because he was overweight. Opossums in captivity do not get the amount of exercise as their wild counterparts. Obviously, in the wild opossums roam all night exploring for food. Captive opossums have room service. Mars was allowed to roam the hospital during the day to help him get the exercise he was missing. He snuck off from Morgan in the back room because he just knew there was something exciting going on in the front room. Once they were sure they got all the paint off him, they rinsed and towel dried him. He was not happy to be manhandled in this manner and continuously tried to wiggle away. It was quite the task to hold onto him.
“Hey Leo, do you have all the paint up? Aspen asked peeking her head out.
“Sure do, release the beast,” he joked. Aspen opened the door and out Mars came, prowling like a shark. Of all the opossums Aspen had met over the years he was the quickest. Usually, the opossums meandered, strolling and lollygagging about. Not Mars, he was an opossum on a mission. He was looking for a mate. He could smell a female opossum but so far he could not find her. What Mars did not know was that the volunteers had gone outside to the opossum enclosure to change and feed Trinity, the center’s three-legged opossum. He did not understand why he could not find her. So he prowled, sniffed and smacked his lips to call to her, day in and day out.
“Man, he just doesn’t give up does he?” Mike said as Mars sniffed and rubbed on his shoes. He had changed Trinity’s blankets that morning and had walked around in the enclosure, thus smelled of the female opossum.
“That’s one of many reasons why wild animals don’t make good pets,” Aspen said. “They have strong instincts to reproduce.”
“What if you got him fixed,” Leo asked, “would that calm him down?”
“I’m not sure,” Aspen said. “It’s just a bummer he was kidnapped from the wild and can’t be a wild opossum.” By this time Mars had salvia all over his face from rubbing on Mike’s shoes. Morgan came up looking for Mars. She had gone outside to clean the aviaries and had just come in and realized he had gotten past her barricade. Mike gave her the rundown of his adventures, the paint, the bath and the current drool festival that was happening on his shoes.
“Well you have had a busy day, haven’t you?” Morgan said to Mars picking him up and putting him back in his cage. “Now you can finish painting without Picasso here interrupting.” The three of them continued painting the room while Morgan finished the few animal tasks remaining. As they were cleaning up the bell on the door alerted them to someone’s presence. “Afternoon,” Morgan said. “What can I do for you?”
“I found this owl on the roof of our garage. I’m not even sure he is alive but I wanted to bring him here, just in case,” the man said.
“Let’s see what you have,” Morgan said as she gently took the swaddled owl from the man. She unwrapped the towel to reveal a very emaciated barred owl. She quickly determined that it had indeed passed away. “What we have here an adult barred owl. It is very thin and unfortunately has passed away.”
The man at the window let out a sigh- “Well I tried,“ he said clearly upset.
“Based on the state of emaciation he is in, he has been sick for a while. There is nothing more you could have done. I’m sorry.” Morgan said gently.
“I understand. I saw him land on our garage yesterday and didn’t realize anything was wrong till this morning when he was still there. It is such a beautiful bird; that’s just too bad. Well, thank you for your help. Sorry to have bothered you for nothing.”
“Oh, no sir, that’s what we are here for. Unfortunately, not every animal brought to us makes it, but at least you were caring enough to retrieve him and bring him to us, and we thank you for that.” The man left somberly and Morgan carefully wrapped the barred owl and placed him in the morgue.
Aspen looked on- “Owls really are amazing, aren’t they? Well, I am done for the day. We finished painting and Leo and Mike are finished cleaning up. I am going to head out,” she said to Morgan.
“Thanks for your help, see you next time,” Morgan replied quickly as the phone rang. Aspen was in the office collecting her things when Morgan popped her head in.
“Hey Aspen, do you have time to swing by this address? It’s just down the road. Apparently, there is an opossum stuck under a metal fence and people have been throwing rocks at it. I would go but I’m the only staff here right now.”
“Sure thing let me grab some stuff and I’ll ask Leo and Mike if either of them want to help,” Aspen said walking away to collect towels, gloves, and a carrier. A few minutes later Aspen and Mike were off. The address was indeed not far from the center. As they approached they saw the chain link fence and slowed to scan the bottom, not knowing the exact location of the animal. Then they saw a young man standing near the fence. They pulled off into the grass and he approached them.
“Hey there. We are from the wildlife center, did you call about an opossum?” Mike asked.
“No I didn’t, but I am glad you’re here. I was just walking along and there were some older guys over here throwing rocks at it. I told them to stop and have been here trying to figure out what to do ever since. I was worried if I left they would come back and hurt it,” the young man said.
“Thanks for doing that,” Aspen said squatting down to look at the situation. “Looks like he is stuck in the vines, but the fence might be poking him too.” There was a spot under the fence where something must have dug under. Unfortunately, this was a well-fed opossum that had underestimated its girth and was now stuck under the fence. Mike walked down a way and climbed over the fence while Aspen stood towel in hand in front of the opossum.
“I’m going to pull the fence up and back and hopefully that will give you enough room to grab him,” Mike said.
“Hold on, let me pull some of these vines off him first,” Aspen said before covering the opossums head with the towel and breaking the vines off that were caught around the belly of the animal. “Ok- I think we’re good,” she said. A moment later she had the opossum wrapped in a towel in her arms carrying it to the dog carrier they brought. Mike quickly jumped back over the fence and helped secure the carrier and loaded it in his car.
The young man was still standing there. Mike approach and said, “It took guts standing up to two guys like that. Thank you for doing that.”
“I guess so, I just wasn’t going to walk by like it was nothing. There’s no reason to do that to an animal, let alone an animal that needs help. I hope it will be ok,” the young man replied.
Aspen and Mike both shook his hand before heading back to the center. In the car on the way back, they discussed it. “Why are people so cruel?” Aspen asked.
“Who knows why they did what they did. I’m just glad that young man had the courage to do the right thing. I’m sure it wasn’t easy,” Mike replied. Once back at the center, Mike brought the opossum in to be admitted while Aspen headed home.
Aspen was preparing to head back to school but Mother Nature had other ideas. A weather front was set to move in the weekend she was moving back. It was expected to be bad enough that her college classes were canceled for two more days. Jack was very excited; he loved the snow. Aspen, on the other hand, had lived along Lake Erie before Jack was born, and had more than enough snow growing up. They dug out their old winter gear and waited for the white stuff. The ground was covered with several inches by the next morning. Luckily it was the weekend so they had nothing to do but play. Jack was up first. He and Vader made paths in the snow as they ran around the backyard. Aspen joined them, taking pictures.
“Hey sis, do you think we can make a snowman?” he asked.
“Maybe if it keeps up,” she replied.
“If we could collect the snow from all around the yard in buckets I bet we wouldn’t have to wait,” Jack said running to the garden shed, emerging moments later with two paint buckets they used to wash the cars and an old snow shovel covered in spider web.
“I can’t believe we still have that,” Aspen laughed as they shoveled snow to make a snowman. Thirty minutes later they stood admiring their handy work. There in the middle of a muddy yard stood the most magnificent snowman Jack had ever created, rocks for eyes, old buttons down its chest, a carrot for a nose, and twigs for arms. Vader stood sniffing the snowman, wondering if it was friend or foe. Before heading in Jack wrapped his scarf around the snowman’s neck. “You were right Jack, we had plenty of snow!” Aspen laughed as they walked across the snowless yard back into the house. While they had hot cocoa they discussed how long it would take for the snowman to melt.
