This time last week
The intricate connection of all things.
This time last week, we travelled with Clover and Atlas, tucked safe in their drey inside a pet carrier, to their new home. To a soft release enclosure on a magical property in Cockatoo from where they’ll be able to thrive, explore, and put their prehensile tails to further ingenious, wild use.
And by this time next week, they’ll quite possibly be free to explore the many trees around them, when the small door to their soft release enclosure is opened, and they can choose, if they are ready, to head out and up, or stay, if they need to get their bearings still. They’ll move on when they’re ready; there’s no great rush. And when they do head out into the surrounding wilderness, they’ll find themselves within a safety of tall trees to sustain and accommodate them, space, and the prospect of meeting one of the five female possums released from a nearby location earlier in the year.
Until then, they learn their new world from the protective embrace of their soft release enclosure. They are a part of the forest, almost.
Clover and Atlas came into our care in January of this year, on the 8th and 17th, and they are now ready to be free and wild once more. As they were both little orphans, they have no territory to return to; they have to find a patch of their own, but they are doing so from the best launching place.
They’ve come so far, and are ready for this next stage, to be wild and free once more, and we couldn’t be happier for them, though we’re going to miss their company and the chance to learn from them by watching them. They taught us so much in not rushing them, in letting them be themselves. Atlas reminded us to try a tricky leap a second time even if you wobbled the first time. Practice builds confidence, and true to his namesake, he knows, he can carry the celestial sphere. Clover taught us, what we interpreted as a theatrical action, the single paw raised up gesture when he’d had his fill. He would raise his paw when he had finished his milk and push the cup away. He did it with such conviction that you could almost hear the words “I can’t even” as he turned his head away. Now, whenever things get too much, we emulate his movements and say aloud, “I can’t even”, in a life as meme moment meets foster memory.
They remind us to slow down and in doing so we get to enter their realm and see things differently.
On our last night with them, in our back garden enclosure, while everything was still familiar for them, we said our goodbyes. They climbed on our shoulders one last time before amazing us with their agility and ease. Always checking in on each other, and including us, for that moment, in their connected loop.
Our daily walks for the next little bit will be quite different now that we don’t need to forage for the ringtails. And they’ll, like Remy and Pip, have shed their foster care names as they return to their wild selves.
Here’s to the beginning of their wonderful new chapter, which is the very best outcome for all of us.
Here’s to us getting to learn more about ringtails, and other wildlife rescues. Like Inky, Blinky, Pinky, and Clyde (pictured below), who stayed in our second enclosure for a short spell before heading back to the South Oakleigh Wildlife Shelter.
Huge thanks to Michele Phillips (South Oakleigh Wildlife Shelter) for her incredible soft release setup for possums, and to Holly and Luke for guiding Clover and Atlas through this next stage, and to our wildlife mentor, Bev Brown (Bat Rescue Bayside).
Image credit: Gracia Haby & Louise Jennison, Bracketed by light (detail), 2022, artists’ book (of small illuminations of crepuscular and nocturnal inhabitants, and one or two besides)
