Instalment 6 Tuesday 12 April 2011

Tamigotchi continues to eat well and is really quite a shy little fellow. Ian says we don't know what his circumstances are. He may have suffered a big fall before I found him. His mother may have booted him out of the pouch, or a larger sibling may have bullied him. Who knows what his story is? We can only guess at what he endured before coming to live with us. There could be all sorts of reasons why he is so shy and sensitive, besides the obvious that he is in a very 'scary' place right now, trying to come to terms with who all these strange people are and all the strange smells that are in the air.

When he is out of his pouch, he sniffs the air trying to get a grip on his new surroundings, but probably feels overwhelmed with all the changes he has faced during the last few days.

I understand this only too well, but the difference for Tamigotchi between the choice of
a) having to endure these changes or, b) being left to fend for himself and certain death is very clear for me. Option b) was never ever going to be an option once I found him.

So, we've been making the best of the situation and the result is hopefully, that Tamigotchi gets a second chance at a life that eventually will include playing in his future favourite trees here at Willow Pond, and eventually having his own little family.

He feels secure in his little pouch but doesn't like to venture out too much. I lift him out and cradle him securely to feed him and then I attempt to toilet him by using some tissue. This practice emulates the mother possum and helps to keep the possum's pouch clean. It is important to do this after every feed. He seems quite comfortable with me handling him and never makes too big of a fuss. As soon a he is fed, been to the 'bathroom' and had long, delicious cuddles, he readily snuggles into the dark, warmed confined space of his pouch to sleep away the daylight hours.

He's been with us five days now and we seemed to have worked out our routines quite well. I still seem to be coping with the broken sleep patterns, though I guess, time will tell.

Instalment 5 Monday 11 April 2011

Tamigotchi was very sleepy when I went to give him his first morning feed. He took a little while to stir. It initially made me a little worried, but I gradually relaxed when I realised he was just sleepy after all and was indeed, okay. I remembered I'd earlier heard him making his clucking noise inside his pouch, so my common sense should have kicked in. But it is really hard not to worry.

After he ate, I spent some time cuddling him. My maternal instincts took over and I felt the need to nurture him and let him know that he was not alone. It's most important that he doesn't feel alone because he needs a community to survive. He snuggled into my nightie, yes, you guessed it - near my chest, and fell asleep after his breakfast, and I was happy for him to be there.

Last night I gave Gillian, my mentor a courtesy call to let her know how things were progressing. I gave her an update on our little guy. We made an appointment to meet up on Tuesday, about 2 pm, so she could check him out and see for herself how he was doing.

I spent most of the night, well, up to 2:30am putting together all my students' entries to a couple of major poetry and short story competitions. I couldn't go any longer past 2:30am. I was exhausted.

I fed Tamigotchi and climbed into bed - exhausted and knowing that the alarm was set for 6:30am. Some sleep-in.

Instalment 4 Sunday 10 April 2011

I continued my night time feeding plan and discovered that getting up through the night wasn't really too bad, but I knew deep down I was probably kidding myself and I would pay sometime down the track.

This morning proved to be my first challenge of this whole new experience of keeping a possum. I was rostered on in the Resource Centre at church and had to be there by 8:15am. I had to time Tamigotchi's feeding so that he would not be left longer than the four hourly feed routine. I fed him at 7:30am, tucked him in his pouch, strapped him inside my bra and wallah...off we went. I decided to take him with me to church to keep him safe and warm. He would be able to hear my heartbeat. And, if he was with me I knew he would be safe and I wouldn't fret.

I arrived on time and set up everything that needed doing, ready for our first customers. Tim was visiting from Hillsong Sydney and he popped in to see how things were doing in our Resource Centre. He chatted away to me as we tried to help each other out with some further setting up, meanwhile the whole time little Tamigotchi slept on, unknown to anyone. He was my little secret.

Luckily for me, he slept very well and snuggled in tight. I potentially could have received a few curious glances if there was massive movement down there. But for my immediate self esteem, I just hoped it didn't look like I had a third boob down there. I didn't get any strange stares from customers, that I noticed anyway, so I think my secret was safe.

Church was very busy and when it was time to go into the service I found my friend who I normally sit with and squeezed in beside her during praise and worship. When it came time to greet each other, I whispered to my friend, as a joke, that I'd had a boob job and asked her what she thought. I was seriously met with a very surprised face and I burst out laughing.

I asked her, "Seriously? You have known me for how long? And you seriously think I'd be the type to go in for a boob job?"

She giggled once she knew I was joking, but the surprised look on her face returned when I whispered what I did have in there.

I've never really thought about how loud praise and worship music is until that morning. Everyone was seriously in the moment and all I could think about was Tamigotchi's little tiny ears and hoped that he was not traumatised.

Tamigotchi survived his first visit to church, as did I. No one knew, except for my friend. He happily ate after we arrived home.

This little guy has lots of attitude though. He bites me when he wants to let me know he's annoyed with me. He certainly lets me know exactly what he wants me to do, or not to do.
His attitude is a good thing. It shows me he has spirit. He has survived to date and I'm sure this has a lot to do with his will, or spirit.

Instalment 3 Saturday 9 April 2011

Ian has named the little guy, Tamigotchi. He says the possum reminds him of the Tamigotchi toys the kids were all into a few years back. They were a form of virtual pet and I guess that pretty much sums up the relationship we will build with Tamigotchi. He can never be a pet. But, for now, he can be our virtual pet...with a very real feeding routine, and broken sleep for me. It reminds me of when I would get up to feed my own babies. You just do it because you need to do it. No different for baby possums at all.

Tamigotchi continues to eat well and I feel confident now that when I hand him over to a Wildlife Carer, the hard work is already done. They'll just need to continue the routine because he certainly knows how to eat.

He now weighs 61 grams, so he is definitely putting on weight, which is a good sign. He bit me again because I am awkward when it comes to handling him. He is all legs, arms and tail. His tail is quite strong as well and everything gets all tangled up. I don't think he appreciates me trying to weigh him.

Well today is definitely decision day. I owe it to Tamigotchi to make some serious decisions. He is settled, eating well, sleeping well and going to the toilet fine, so I am content that everything is going to plan, short term.

Now I have to do something with the long term plan and find someone that I trust to do right by him. It's his best interests that still lie in my heart.

I found various websites with basic information, but the one called BARN really stuck out for me. The information on their site was really useful and written in a way that was clear and easy to understand. BARN is located at Rocklea, an area not really all that far away from Willow Pond. They also had a phone number, so I decided that because these people really seemed to know what they were talking about, I would call them.

I got all psyched up to call, but when I finally did, it was a wrong number. You can imagine my disappointment. This pushed me into a corner. I would have to call the vets. I was still reluctant to call the vets because they are always so busy and I would not get to talk with a carer. I would have to surrender him and leave his fate in someone else's hands. I felt a bit sick to the stomach. He would have to wait on his own and it is always noisy at the vets with barking dogs, etc. I didn't want him to get stressed out like that. It was making me stressed just thinking about it.

But, I did it. Finally. The vets confirmed for me that I would need a permit if I was considering the option of caring for Tamigotchi. Otherwise I could take him in to them and surrender him. The other option was that I could bring him in for a vet to look at him and pay for the service as if he was a pet of mine.

I asked them if they could organise for me to speak with a wildlife carer. I explained that what I was hoping for was the opportunity to have a wildlife carer mentor who could help me raise Tamigotchi so that he could be released back onto Willow Pond. The receptionist went a way for a moment and when she returned she told me they would have to call me back.

I waited for quite some time for the vet to phone back. My head was still going at a hundred mile an hour and then I remembered a previous conversation I'd had with my friend Jill, who lives in my neighbourhood. She mentioned there was a bird sanctuary or something like that on a road behind her property. I phoned Jill to ask her if she knew the phone number of these people; wildlife people would be great a networking and I felt that if I could talk to these bird sanctuary people, they might know someone. Jill was on her way out to get Thai for lunch and told me she would phone her friend when she got home. Jill did not know the bird people personally, but her friend did.

So, I waited.

While I waited the phone rang. It was the vets phoning to apologise for taking so long, but they were unable to organise a carer to speak with me, but they did give me a phone number for a Redland Bay area wildlife group. I thanked them for their help and decided to wait now until I heard back from Jill.

Finally she called. The reason she took so long was because she is not just a friend who says  she will help, she gets in and gets her hands dirty. Instead of just ringing me back with a phone number, she found out from her friend where the bird people lived and drove around to see them. She met them and explained my situation. When she phoned me, she handed the phone to a lady called Nat who wanted to speak with me and she asked me lots of questions and then explained the tough job of raising baby ringtail possums. The road apparently is fraught with dangers and things that can go wrong. She spoke to me for quite some time and then she told me the name of a wildlife carer in my local area. This carer only lived two roads over from me. Jill popped back on the phone and said she was going to drive around, pick me up and take me to Gillian's place.

I got Tamigotchi all packed up and organised. I took him around to all the family to say goodbye and whilst I was a little sad, I felt that it was for the best. I had managed, with the help of a friend, to find a carer close to Willow Pond and it made me feel much more comfortable about handing him over.

Jill arrived and we loaded up and drove over to Gillian's house. Gillian is a softly spoken lady who is very calm around animals and wildlife. She is close to my age. Her home is full to brimming with dogs, birds, baby joey wallabies that are in care. She works full time as a wildlife carer and also runs a dog sitting business, a dog grooming business and makes homemade soaps and teats which she sells at the Chandler Markets. She is such an interesting lady. I immediately felt very comfortable with her. Her husband Warren busily worked outside keeping the property up to scratch with whipper snipping and mowing and it is obvious he is a great support to Gillian.

We spent quite some time together. She listened to my story about Tamigotchi and asked me lots of questions. I was a little disappointed to learn that she had only just passed along three baby possums to another carer within the last couple of days. I knew it was very important for Tamigotchi to have mates as ringtails need company and community. Brushtails don't mind being on their own, but ringtails are very social.

I told Gillian all I had learnt off the Internet about possums over the past couple of days and I think I must have impressed her a little, because then the darnedest thing happened. Gillian said to me, "If you join BARN for $15, I will be your mentor."

I was blown away that out of all the websites I had viewed, it was BARN's website that I took the most notice of and now here was Gillian telling me that if I joined BARN she would mentor me. I really felt it was one of those 'do-do-do-do' moments.

So it seemed I had found a mentor after all. I was now going to get the opportunity to have a go at raising Tamigotchi myself, under the watchful eye of Gillian. She told me she would network with others to find another ringtail to raise with Tamigotchi.

Gillian spent more time talking to me about the process of soft release, which is what we would be leading up to for Tamigotchi. She weighed him and had a good look over him. On her scales he weighed 57 grams, but my scales had read 59 grams and then 61 grams. Anyway, it didn't really matter too much. Gillian taught me how to work out a proper feeding regime so that Tamigotchi would eat between ten and twenty percent of his weight and he would now be on four hourly feeds which would be great for me, especially through the night. She also got him to do a wee so she could check that he was okay in that department.

Gillian kindly put together all the things I would need to take care of the little guy. She gave me some handmade fleecy pouches, syringes for feeding, I bought some proper milk product from her called Divetelact, a couple of her handmade teats, some large safety pins and an information pack - more necessary reading. She also gave me a little plastic cage for when he got a little bigger.

His feeding regime would be 3 mls every 4 hours.

Jill patiently waited while all this was being worked out, then we loaded up and drove home. I had Tamigotchi in his little pouch stuck down the front of my bra. This kept him warm and secure, listening to my heart beat. The things us Possum mums have to do.

When we arrived home I invited Jill in for a drink, which she accepted. The family were all a little surprised when I arrived home with Tamigotchi, but somehow I don't think they were all that surprised. I updated the family on the process of raising little Tamigotchi.

It is not always an easy road raising ringtails and apparently there are many diseases and problems that can crop up out of the blue and cause death. Hearing and reading about all these problems makes me extremely nervous. But what can I do? The only thing I can do is to give it my best shot.


It is scary, but most things worth doing are usually the scariest. I will be praying that Tamigotchi stays strong and well. I think he is a survivor and I'm going to do everything in my power to help him survive.

I don't even know how long possums live for once they make it to adulthood.

Instalment 2 - Friday 8 April 2011

I woke up a little bleary-eyed this morning after setting the alarm for the two hourly feeds my new little friend needs. With each feed he gets a little better at managing the syringe. I don't have a teat or anything on the end of the syringe, so it's not the best situation, but beggars can't be choosers.

The morning progresses well and I quickly discover he is a bit of a master on the syringe by now. He's quite a strong little guy and during the night my confidence grew with each feed. I think he is going to make it, and I now believe I can help him along the way.

I still don't know what sex he or she is, but for blogging purposes, I am going to make an uneducated guess and call him a he. He slept really well through the night and it didn't take much for me to notice that he loves getting the top of his head rubbed. I am happy to oblige.

After each feed, I gently massage his little body and he goes right off to sleep. I continue to feed him every two hours through today. He is just gorgeous and my heart fills with love for him. How could you not fall in love with such a precious little honey?

By afternoon he is quite the expert on the syringe and I somehow get the impression that he loves his food. He drinks about 1.5ml of diluted Carnation milk each feed.

I did some more reading on the Internet about possums and I am confident he is definitely a ringtail possum. An odd feeling begins to invade my space. I am beginning to feel very torn and uneasy with whom I should notify about this little guy. I really want to do what's best for him, but deep inside, I know this is his home and he should remain here. Oh, I don't know! This is not very easy.

I feel very protective. I want to speak to someone whom I can trust to help me make the right decision for him. I've done a lot of thinking since yesterday and realise this situation is not so cut and dried.

Some deep thought needs to go into this little guy's situation. I am thinking of the big picture. Willow Pond is his home. When he grows up, he is meant to be here. It's his birthright and there is no reason why he shouldn't remain here.

If I could find a mentor I know that I could raise him well. I'd certainly give it my best shot. I'm not silly. I know I could never raise a possum by myself. I know I'd need some help.

Now it was up to me to find someone. I'd have to think about this some more.

Another problem is - I don't have a permit.

After doing further reading I discover that you need a permit to raise wildlife. Well, that makes sense and I don't have a problem with that. Now I need to sign up to be a wildlife carer. That can't be too hard now, can it?

By afternoon, I decide to weigh the little guy. I use my digital kitchen scales. He weighs 59 grams. He is so little and there's not much to him.

His fur is smooth and shiny. I now know for sure from my latest reading, he is not what they call a 'pinky' (furless). Judging from the information, I take a guess that he is between 110 - 115 days old. Ringtails apparently don't get to grow too big.

Some more interesting information I discover is that I need to wipe his bottom gently with a tissue after he eats to encourage him to go to the toilet. I used to have to do this with Kayla's three puppies when I had to take over raising them after Kayla developed severe mastitis. You don't need to rub hard. It is more a tickle with the tissue.

I tried this the next time I fed him, however, it was a little tricky and awkward and in the end I wasn't sure I'd been very successful.

During the evening he becomes decidedly more active. I found a cute basket to make a bed for him in it. When it was time for me to go to bed I carried him upstairs in the basket and set him down on my bedside table, all tucked in for the night. His last feed had been at 12:30am and I was ready to hit the sack. I set the alarm for 2:30am and turned out the lights.

At about 12:20am I awoke to a sound that was not familiar. My brain finally identified the sound as one that comes from the little guy. I'd heard him make it before. The problem was that it didn't seem to be coming from the basket. It was coming from somewhere else in the room.

I got up carefully and turned on the light and dimmed it right down. The little guy was not in his basket and nor was Ian in bed. Ian, I discovered was in the bathroom. I knew I'd need to be careful about where I put my feet. I could still hear the little high pitched sound he was making. I made my way down towards to bottom of the bed and there he was, sitting in the middle of the floor and no doubt, very scared. I can believe that he escaped the sleeping puppies - again, and that Ian hadn't trod on him on the way to the bathroom. Once again his skin had been saved.

I pick him up and he bit me lightly on my forefinger. Cheeky! It didn't hurt, but it is always a surprise when he bites. He has bitten me a couple of times now. I'm a little awkward holding him yet, but I am getting better.

I collect his basket and make our way downstairs. It is now time for some milk. I quickly get everything ready and soon he is tucking in well. He is a spirited little guy.

Now I had to come up with a plan to contain him. I ended up using my netting throw that I use to cover food on the dining table to protect from nasty flies, etc. I spread it over the basket and secured it well. We climbed the stairs after I cleaned up the possum's things and I put the basket back on the bedside table. I left the light on dimmer and laid down and watched to see what would happen next.

I didn't have to wait long for a small silhouette to appear out of his bed. He spent a little bit of time climbing all around the basket inside of the netting, but then he when he discovered he couldn't escape, he burrowed back down into his covers and his hidey hole. Such a cutie.

The Rescue: Thursday 7 April 2011

Ahhh, day one of school holidays. Well teachers get pretty excited about school holidays too, you know. And it had been a long term of 11 weeks and all. I love my job. During school terms I work part-time teaching bright young primary students creative writing.

I had just had a very relaxing start to a very ordinary day. First a trip to the hairdressers and then off on one of my very favourite missions...a trip to Riverbend Books for some new titles and a coffee. Can it get much better than that? Nah! I don't think so. On the way  I got caught in two heavy downpours in what was a very sunny day here in Brisbane. Downpours are typical for Brisbane, even during our sunny periods.

With my field trip over for day, I drove home and slid the gate open, drove in, parked the car in the garage and proceeded to walk back to shut the gate, just like normal. But today turned out to be not quite so ordinary. For there near the gate, my eyes clapped sight of the smallest possum I'd ever seen in my life. All alone. At first I thought it was a rat!

I stopped short and just stared, gobsmacked. I wondered what would happen next. I wasn't sure what he was going to do. I was very careful not to make any scary or sudden moves. I quietly walked past him and slid the gate shut. My next thought was to find a towel to pick him up with. He hadn't moved.

I found an old towel quickly and then doing my best not to scare the living daylights out of the little guy, I delicately picked him up, gently wrapped him and cradled him in my hands.

Now what was I going to do?

I spent some time looking for mamma. We have possums living in our sheds, so I thought he must have fallen off his mother's back or something like that. I was hoping to find his mamma, but had no such luck. Where were they when you wanted them. Probably holed up somewhere sleeping the daylight away.

I managed to get my stuff inside and then I sat down and tried to warm up my new little friend. I hadn't been feeling that well for most of the day, so I decided this was a perfect way to make myself just sit down and relax. I found a comfy chair in the lounge room and sat down, put him close to my chest and began to warm him. I thought I'd wait until someone else came home and they could help me take him to the vets so he could be handed over to a Wildlife Carer.

I sat with him for hours. No one came home and while I waited I decided to open my laptop and google for information on possums. I didn't even know what sort of possum this little guy was at this point. Nor did I know if he was a she. I hadn't really looked at him all that much yet, but I remembered that he was a rusty red colour. The possums I'd seen in our shed, I thought, looked a different colour. They were more grey, but babies sometimes start out as one colour and change when they get their adult fur.

After a short time, I decided to go across to the shed to try to find a hot water bottle and something I could make a little pouch out of. I didn't come up with the water bottle yet, but I managed to find a little dog's knitted jacket that belonged to my son's dog, Ewok. It was perfect to keep the possum in so that he would be warm and feel secure. I somehow managed to transfer him into this new pouch and he didn't seem to mind.

I spent a long time trying to navigate my way around the minefield of information. I couldn't really find very many websites about Australian possums. It began to get dark outside and still no one had come home yet. The little possum was now very settled and seemed quite unperturbed by everything.


I read an article on an official Victorian Wildlife Sanctuary website that for emergency purposes you could feed small possums diluted Carnation milk. Well, I had some of that in my pantry and we have horses and I knew we had some clean syringes (not the needles) here for the times we've needed to inject horses. I carried the little guy around with me and found these things. I diluted and heated the milk to skin temperature and then filled up the sterilised syringe and gave it my best shot.

At first, I was very clumsy in the way I held the little guy. I'd never held a possum before and they have all these little toes and hooky feet, plus a very strong, curly tail. I was certainly very awkward and he didn't have a clue what was going on either. We muddled our way through though and I managed to get the syringe full of milk into his tummy; all 1.5 ml of it. But, hey...I was happy with that. Success.

By this stage I was beginning to think he was a little ringtail possum because I noticed the creamy-white tip on the end of his tail when he'd come unwrapped and the fur description on the website information matched his fur. So, okay. Now I had a very young ringtail possum on my hands. Literally.
By the time someone came home I decided, after reading what was involved in caring for the possums that I wouldn't take him down to the vet's tonight. If we did he would have to wait with barking dogs while a carer came to pick him up. I believed that I was responsible enough to be able to get up through the night for two hourly feeds. I'd raised my own babies, so I felt I owed it to this little guy. It all came down to common sense, really. I'd learnt by this stage that he was not what they call 'a pinky', (a furless ringtail possum), which meant he had a higher rate of survival, and the way he was eating, I really felt very comfortable that I would be fine taking care of him. Oh, and after another couple of searches in the shed I found the hot water bottle I was looking for. I was able to use this as a heat pad to keep him warm throughout the night.

So, that's how we began this journey.

I got up every two hours and reacquainted myself with the little guy throughout the wee small hours. Obviously he was quite alert during these periods. He seemed to really enjoy it when I gently 'fairy brushed' his back and head and rubbed around his ears. His mother would be doing this, so as a substitute mum, I tried to emulate what she would do. I did however draw the line at any licking to clean though. We'd have to find another way for that! Every time I held him, my heart grew bigger. During these feed times I always spend a little time with him held up against my chest so he could listen to my heartbeat.

So, until next time...
love from Willow Pond

Revamped: Cimmaron Soul to Willow Pond

This blog site has been dormant for a little while now, but it always stayed in the back of my mind. I kind of left it so I could set up my book club and writers' club blog and because I'm not a technological IT sort of person, these things take time for me to implement. So I contented myself with one blog at a time: my Novel Tea 'n Pages blog and left things be.

However, now I'm back with new ideas and decided this blog needed a name change and a revamp, which I proceeded to do. Now I'm ready to begin.

I hope along the way I meet up with many new readers. It takes awhile I know, but here's hoping.

I am going to start my blog rolling by sharing some adventures about the experience of being thrown into the deep end of a  world previously unknown by me. This world that I speak of is that of 'Wildlife Carer'. It wasn't planned at all. I just kind of fell into it. But I won't spoil it here.

I plan to chronicle my journey because you see, this adventure was born out of necessity and the fact that I have a soft heart, or maybe because I am a 'soft touch'? Well, it doesn't matter. The thing is I began this journey with zero knowledge and have been on a steep learning curve the whole time, but I feel like I'm coming up to speed fast.

Like everything new, there are times I feel confident and other times not so confident, but there's no choice, you just keep pushing on through and hopefully at the end, there will be reward.

So, I hope you decide to join me on my journey. I hope that over time I end up building a journal that might prove useful to any novice that finds themselves in the situation I recently found myself in.

so, until next time...
love from Willow Pond