Groundhogs

My back yard is full of groundhogs. That's what happens when you live on what used to be a farm. They used to live out in the field to the north of the farmhouse I live in, but they were ran out of town by our church building. It's been fun watching the baby groundhogs run around the back yard from year to year.

The only real run in I've ever had was last summer. One of the babies was up close to the house one day when Steph, Hannah, and I came home one afternoon. Me, being the guy that I am, decided to take off and chase it, to introduce it to the greater of God's creation called man. However, the little furball rodent had not learned to fear the greater creation and quickly turned and charged me. This wouldn't have been a problem had I been wearing real shoes; I would have punted him into next week. However, I was wearing flip flops because it was summer. Naked toes and sharp teeth don't go together in my paradigm of life, so I did what any 270 pound man would do--turned and ran like a little girl. My wife still giggles about it.

On Saturday, we piled into the car to take Hannah to Fast Track (our hospital's version of a walk in clinic) because of some minor health issues. I go to start the car and nothing happens. Mind you, the car has been sitting for a week while we were at CIY, and worked well the last time I drove it. Needless to say, I was frustrated. My daughter was sick, my car didn't work. It wasn't a good day. Later that afternoon I made a few phone calls to those who are more car repair oriented than me and came to the conclusion that either my starter was bad or that some of the extra electronic gizmos they put on your cars was not working. I knew it was way beyond my expertise, so I pushed my car out of it's normal spot in my driveway so the tow truck to take it away on Monday.

Sunday rolls around and one of the before mentioned car repair oriented peoples stops by to take a look. As we are looking under the hood, I see this foot behind the engine. It is attached to a hairy, furballish body. I quickly grabbed a stick and began poking and prodding at it to get it out of my engine. Why an animal that God created to live in the ground decided to crawl up into my engine compartment is beyond me. But he was there. I figured that the car was closer to his turf than its place in the driveway. He was just exploring. He left after awhile, once we stepped away from the car.

Now, I know what you are thinking. The car doesn't start, maybe the little furball chewed threw something. I thought that too, as did my wife. Yet, when I looked behind the engine compartment, there didn't seem to be any wires that he could chew on. Plus, I figured he was just crawling up in there because he was young and fearless (remembering back to my earlier encounter with one of his brothers/uncles).

This leads to this morning. Before the tow company came to pick up my car, I saw the furball and one of his siblings playing in my front yard. As I tried to scare them, one ran under the car. While this frustrated me, I didn't want the little guy to take a scary ride to the auto dealership. So I popped the hood and promptly gave him a few more good whacks with the stick, which sent him scurrying for the safety of his hole in the ground. Hopefully he has learned his lesson.

About an hour ago, I got a call from the car dealership. It seems that my little engine stowaway chewed through a wire harness or something to that effect. It's going to cost me $275 with the tow to get my car back up and running.

It's going to be a bad week for groundhogs. . .