Groundhog Day

We somehow managed to snag three acres of woods right outside of Pittsburgh. Directly behind our house is a cliff leading to a major interstate, and we dump produce scraps and pet shit over the side of it to rot. (Sadly, the house is too high up from the highway and the woods are too thick for anything to hit passing cars.)

Every once in a while we catch a glimpse of bewildered wildlife, staggering around the yard amidst all the transportation noise like they have no idea how this all happened. It's kindof sad if you think about it too much.

Most recently, a groundhog (or woodchuck, if you're a hick) took up residence on the side of the hill and has been eating like a goddamn king for months. He's also wrecked some parts of our garden when plentiful scraps weren't enough, but I digress.

This month we bottled David's first batch of homemade blueberry wine. After it ferments in the "primary fermenter" the wine is moved to another container, and the blueberry/yeast mash is discarded. Onto the back hill. Where the groundhog has been living it up like Templeton's smorgasbord.

(If you don't catch that, GTFO.)

Last weekend or so, David took the dogs outside and caught movement in the back of the yard, on our side of the fence. Somehow the dogs were oblivious.

Then the groundhog moved closer, which is never a good idea.

It waddled along the fence line, clearly not right. Fearing rabies or another illness, David tried to reign the dogs in, but he was far too outnumbered.

Confused by the ruckus, the groundhog hissed at the dogs as one by one they attempted to gnaw on it. It snapped at Brutus, but didn't connect. At one point, Orion picked it up by the neck and shook it like a toy.

It struggled free and stumbled to the corner of the gate, where David was now approaching. Cornered between unforgiving metal and four loud, snapping mouths, the poor drunk groundhog must've had one of those "I'll never drink again" moments.

David managed to wedge a scrap piece of fencing between the dogs and the groundhog so it could finally squeeze its chubby butt through a depression it found. It tumbled along in a zig-zag path back to the hill to work off possibly the worst hangover in the history of the world.


*As a disclaimer, just because, all of our dogs are routinely updated on all their vaccines including rabies. No one, not even the drunk groundhog, was hurt in this encounter.