Groundhog Day

The groundhog family - Mama in background, with Eenie, Meenie, and Moe. This is one of those circle of life sort of stories. The reason Chuck and I live in the country is because of groundhogs. Before we were married, he and son Steve used to go out to Mr Greathouse's farm to hunt groundhogs. They are the bane of farmers, digging holes in crop fields and eating copious amounts of soy bean plants, or in pastures where cattle step in them and break legs, or lambs fall into and are trapped. So Mr Greathouse was delighted to have to dedicated sharpshooters to keep the population under control.
Due to hunting at Greathouse's, we knew the area and eventually found a small, very rundown farm we could afford, moving out of inner city Columbus after we were married.
So we bought the 44A farm, and then the sheep came along and went crazy. Eventually we bought 164A so we had room for all the sheep. Now we've retired to the 22A we purchased last fall. And instead of shooting groundhogs, I find Chuck watching them from the windows, or sneaking out on the front porch with a cup of coffee to wait for the babies to come out into the lawn to graze.