Groundhog Day is a big event every year on this day over in Gobblers Knob, Pennsylvania.
Someone provokes a hibernating woodchuck named
Punxsutawney Phil to come out of his hole and predict the arrival of spring.
Even I can do that.
Provoked by the alarm clock I crawled out of a perfectly warm bed this
morning at 5:30 AM, poured myself a steaming cuppa joe and fetched the news from the warming glow of my computer monitor. It was a perfectly tropical 9 degrees at sunrise. I therefore concluded more winter before the
arrival of spring.
The man in the photo is making a grave mistake. You should never grab a groundhog - especially if you are going to wave it around in the air over your head.
From the Algonquian wuchak. Also known as the whistle pig – Marmota monax
belongs to the vast squirrel family. They are big rodents.
Trust me. I know
this.
I have had to deal with multiple critter infestations
under my barn. This includes everything from bunnies, to raccoons to
kittens. One year I had a
groundhog. And that bugger was burrowing
furiously.
Groundhogs are well adapted miners. They have short but powerful legs and very sharp claws. They are capable of excavating hundreds of pounds of dirt. And this fella was chucking enough dirt that it wouldn’t be long before he seriously undermined the structural integrity of the barn foundation.
Shooting a woodchuck is against the law in Wisconsin.
Yep. They’re protected – just like badgers and wolves. Not wanting to draw the attention of the
local game warden and pleading a landowner exception I opted for the old
reliable method.
Mothballs.
I poured a box of mothballs down the woodchuck’s
hole. Oh sure, your barn will smell like
grandma for awhile but critters cannot stand mothballs. And it worked almost immediately for me.
I was puttering in the machine shed when old Phil
(smelling strangely of naphthalene) waddled his way into the shed and gave me
the hairy eyeball. He was not
happy. Actually, he was angry to the
point of provocation because he reared-up on his hind legs and gave me a nasty
bark.
Taking a machete from the peg board I waved it menacingly
and told him to get the heck out of my shed.
He scurried away retreating behind a sheet of plywood
leaning against the wall.
I grabbed a garden rake and thrust it in his face.
He snorted and whistled and parried back with his claws.
Claw for claw - back and forth we went. Parry and thrust.
I was gaining the upper hand and Phil was losing ground.
Finally forced from the shed he scurried a safe distance
from the crazy guy with the rake, turned and gave me a dirty look and
waddled-off in the direction of a neighboring farm.
Nasty attitude the groundhog has.
Dangerous too.
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