It has been a while, no?

Despite my new foreign writing accent, nothing much else has happened. I haven't had a lot to report on in about three weeks. But there are a few little things that I could share, I suppose.

Hmmm. Let's think, here. Well, there was this morning's little adventure. Yes, that's right. The Groundhog.

After a year or more of scheming, we've caught one of the buggers and set it free to roam in someone else's field. Let that little critter have a happy life in the wild, but not in our yard, thank you very much.

About a year ago, John and I found a large brown animal that looked like a beaver/cat-without-a-tail wobbling around the backyard. I found him cute and wooly and he ate up the dandelions. All good things in my book.

But the "oohs" and "ahs" came to a screeching hault when John found a gaping hole about ten inches in diameter right in front of the shed door. "Someone's gonna break a leg stepping into that thing!" he exclaimed. "Why, that's just silly," I said, "Who in their right mind would step in it on purpose?" But I didn't really say that, because I knew our son could...by mistake. But that never happened either. I showed him exactly where it was and told him a wonderful tale about a groundhog who lived in there and only came out when we're inside the house to eat the weeds. Jack respected the hole. He would tiptoe around it and always point out that "that's where the groundhog lives- don't step in the hole!" And when his friends and cousins came to play, we'd pop a soccer ball in it like a cork to make sure no insurance claims would be called in.

That Fall we saw that the big brown wooly feller had a big grayish wooly friend. They moved in together. We got nervous and thought trouble was brewing. Let's face it, groundhogs don't know the first thing about safe sex and much less about combining his and her furniture and belongings from both their holes into one. But we heard things weren't working out. Eventually, the big gray one moved out. Big Brownie never heard from him again. Good riddens, I say.

Winter came and all the groundhogs hunkered down into their respective holes.

Then sometime this past April, the big brown fella squeezed his fat hibernating ass out of that hole. I was thrilled, Spring was coming early! John, not so much.

You see, I neglected to say how John and I called the city of Solon to ask what they were going to do about this nuiscance of ours. Actually, John was the one all up in a huff about it. But the city wasn't going to do anything. They shrugged and said that we had to trap it ourselves and then we could call them. But I was worried about what the poor little animal's fate would be when the city came out to "collect" him. Collect. Was one the city workers going around and "collecting" the trapped wild animals and skinning them? Huh? Does anybody really know? Well, I couldn't get a straight answer so I told John we could probably just stuff up the hole after he runs out and then with his home all boarded up, he'd have to find a new place to live. Of course that would probably mean he'd go and set up camp in our unsuspecting neighbors' yards, who later would give us the evil eye and train their dog to go in our yard.

I would stake out in the house all morning by the window and when that big brown furball ran out of his hole and far enough away, I would run out and put a big rock in his doorway. Later, he'd come back and would at the place his hole used to be and look around as if his car was stolen. "I swear I parked it right here! Oh, this is bogus, man," and then he'd go hobble away into the bushes. But the next day he'd dug alittle bit around and squeezed into his hole again. Damn thing knows how to break into it's own house.

When your own gem of an idea doesn't work, what else can you do but turn to the internet? I researched "groundhogs", a.k.a. "woodchucks"or "gophers", and found that they will only be scared out of their hole if they think a predator is trying to invade. And wolves are the predators. Unfortunately for us, there just aren't enough wolves wandering around to scare them off, and if their were, we wouldn't have a severe issue with the over-population of deer and groundhogs. And I know for a fact if they were actually living among us, the people of this town would be up in arms and claiming that we need to shoo them out of town for they'd eat our pets and children. A double edged sword for sure.

But where there may not be wolves, it is possible to purchase bottles of wolves' urine. That's right. I found that out on the trusty internet. And I found a local store that sold it. Ewww, I know. But you can bet a bought a bottle. And how much is a bottle of wolf pee going for these days, you might ask? About ten dollars in change. I'd like to know more about the background of this product, like where did it come from? Who collects this urine? Do they have wolves lined up on a big machine with funnels attached to their "parts" leading straight into these bottles? Is it then pastuerized or something, because I don't know if stale wolf pee is gonna do the trick now.

Well, after I put on some latex gloves, dribbled a little bit around the hole, and washed my hands, of course, I waited inside by the window. After about ten minutes the groundhog peeked it's head out and then ran like hell. Yeah! It worked! I'm a genius!

Not so fast.

Okay, more on this later....I promise. It's getting dangerously too long for one little post. You'd had enough reading for today, now haven't you?