Earlier this month, events transpired that brought out a fresh line of homeownership excitement to report on. Over the June 9th weekend, when I was piddling in the kitchen but without my usual music playing, I was hearing some odd bumps and creaks that I could not isolate or figure out. It was raining, too, and it wasn't clear if I was hearing the house settle or birds on the gutters or something in the wall.
The following Monday, the mystery began to dissipate, first with the discovery of some digging at the foundation behind the HVAC units, and then spotting a displaced foundation vent cover. I glanced out the kitchen window just a bit later in time to see a groundhog there, who quickly retreated through the foundation wall into the kitchen complex crawlspace, directly under the butler's pantry.
Seems to have been a good time to have on hand a battery-powered motion-activated camera I could quickly mount above that, by leaning out one of the kitchen table bay windows. That was my first thought: documentation! (Well, also the convenience of automatic monitoring with app notifications when triggered.)
Then I headed down to the cellar to see if I could spot his activity through the internal foundation openings. (The cellar is only under the center of the house—specifically, the dining room and the master bedroom and the back part of the main hallway—and there is crawlspace under the front parlours and under the kitchen addition.) Sure enough, he was ambling around up under there, checking things out, utterly unconcerned with the grey-headed bespectacled homeowner tracking his movements with a flashlight...and snapping photos with his phone.
Next came the internet research: what damage might a groundhog do, how does one evict such an unwelcome guest, are they aggressive or rabid, and so on...
I ordered a Hav-A-Hart trap since I never retrieved my last one from dropping off a sick stray pup at a nearby vet clinic. I see tons of groundhogs on my walks around the city, perhaps because they are drawn mostly to roadsides and other transportation infrastructure sites because all those areas have been 'worked' during construction. Only twice before have I seen a groundhog in the vicinity of the house: once up on the parking lot above us, and once when he was hiding under some clutter at the back wall and being very aggressive at the curious and investigatory Sumner.
So that Tuesday, I suited up and armed myself to go investigate firsthand. A wildlife specialist is a minimum of $300 but a steak knife duct-taped to a metal rod is just pennies on the dollar. In my other hand, a spare unused meat fork. A headlamp, disposable painter's overalls, and work gloves completed my uniform. (Overlooked was the need for a facemask: it's mighty dusty up under the house.) I swept the entirety of this vast crawlspace; I reckon it's a fair-sized kitchen that got built onto the house 15 years ago! Finally, at the end of that belly-squirming journey, when I got to the other side that's under the kitchen table, there was slight movement under a rounded bulge of black plastic: there he was, surely hoping I'd go away and leave him be. But the potential damage he could inflict did not allow that option. Now is the time to stop reading if you think you might not care for what I did next.
Steeling my courage, and without thinking through a more comprehensive plan, I stabbed that mound with the meat fork. He shot out like a light, turned on a dime along the interior foundation walls of the kitchen bay, and scampered to a place of retreat amongst the tangle of ductwork coming through the original foundation from the HVAC unit in the cellar. I was overcome for a bit from all the dust that got stirred up and undertook a retreat of my own to recover and dust off and wash out my throat.
The next day, Wednesday, I went up under there again, similarly armed but this time with a facemask and some garlic powder, and did another thorough sweep. I found no signs of that groundhog, nor did I find any signs of any digging either. Perhaps he'd managed to escape without my temporary camera capturing it? Did he find a way to climb up inside a wall? I found no other avenue of escape but then again I'm not operating with the deeper knowledge of a wildlife specialist who gets $300 a pop for his services.
For a number of days, all was quiet. I didn't know if I injured him or missed entirely. I could not tell if he got out or if he found some other hiding spot somewhere up under this awesome old manse. I ended up with a foundation vent hole to cover up again and had a definite preference for which side of it he was on when I did so. Then, on the first day of summer, with dreary grey skies still overhead and ongoing threats and splashes of rain, I chanced to spy on the neighboring slope behind the house:
It only makes sense that that's my guy, right? Doesn't it have to be? I watched him long enough to see his place of retreat, circled on the above photo, just above him, and I'm more than happy for him to embrace a non-Roediger House address for a new abode.
Look at the bugger. He appears to be quite content, comfortable in these new digs (haha!), convenient to plenty of grass and clover to eat to his heart's content, no?
It's too bad that it was not a sunny day for putting the Canon long lens to work capturing him as best I could.
I'll be keeping my eye on him, though, given that the crawlspace's temptations might not have yet passed.
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