It's all my fault!

I've been on a camera hiatus. Not sure why. But things have still been happening around the ranch.

Like the other night. We were sitting in the house sipping on a nice glass of wine when I heard a single hen squawking. Oops. I had forgotten to close their pen up at sunset. I ran out of the house yelling and ran directly into a raised garden bed. Ouch. Should have brought a flashlight. About this time Mark shot a gun hoping to scare the critter away. I make it to the hen house at the bottom of the garden and hear a quiet scuffling. Can't see a darn thing. I'm sure not going in there. The critter might have big teeth and a claws and red glowing eyes. I holler for Mark to put the gun away and bring a light. He does and we immediately see a single hen in the pen, on the ground, hunkered down. She looks alive. Inside the hen house is a big opossum happily eating eggs I hadn't picked up yet. I think perhaps it was like a nice glass of wine to him. All the other hens were quiet on their roosts up above with their eyes glued on the strange creature. They didn't make a peep. I guess the noise I heard was from the hen in the pen. She probably was roosting in a box and the strange creature with the big teeth and claws and red glowing eyes showed up. I would have squawked too. Well, At this point I have to say Mark whacked him in the head with the back of the flashlight and the possum then took a flying leap ( with a little lift from his tail) over the fence and onto an adjacent roof of the now empty sheep pen. Where he still lays, playing possum. I guess he won't be eating eggs again. I feel kind of bad though. If only I had closed the pen at the correct time none of this would have happened. (And the hens seem to have taken this in stride as a normal evening occurance.) I wonder what they think of us... or flashlights?