Aaaaaand, He's Gone.

Just like that.  Almost.  Yesterday we went to the local hardware and bought their one and only Havahart trap in size "rabbit."  I set it up, loaded it with a cracked egg (I knew that would come in handy some day) and some sliced turkey and left it in the coop with Mr. P, who was having a lovely snooze under the nesting box. While he was busy dreaming his little possumy dreams, the rest of us waited.  And waited.  And peeked in through the window now and then.  And waited.

At 6:45 it was dark and half of  the chickens were huddled at the door waiting for it to open so they could go to bed (the other half having gone to bed in the summer coop, which I very thoughtfully left open for them so they wouldn't have to huddle outside a locked door waiting for something miraculous to happen), but Mr. P was still not up. Off I went to my meeting, sprouting some concerns about the removal of this possum.

At 8:15, after my meeting, I called home and was informed that El Husbando was, at that very moment, driving Mr. P to a new home far, far away.  This turned out to be a lie: El Husbando was instead spending a great deal of time trying to move my feather-brained birds who,  apparently stunned into immobility by the sudden and unexpected opening of the coop door, were refusing to reenter their now-possum-free home. But, soon enough he was on his way with Mr. P in tow.  I like to imagine El Husbando taking all sorts of sneaky turns to confuse Mr. P's sense of direction, but I'm pretty sure they drove straight west for 7 miles.  Mr. P must have believed that even a wire cage with an old egg in it was preferable to the great outdoors because he wouldn't leave the trap and El Husbando had to turn the trap straight up and shake it (just a little, he promises) to dump our poor marsupial out. He (Mr. P, that is) wandered off into a field and that is hopefully the last we will see of him.

Not that I would be willing to wager any money on that.