Critter

At North Street we had a number of experiences with critters. I came across these photos recently. We described the adventure in our July 31, 2007 letter to our children.

"Throughout the evening we heard knocking sounds periodically. Joe looked around outside but couldn’t determine the source. It’s often difficult to determine the source of sounds because of the way sound bounces around in our backyards. We figured the sound came from kids playing in the office parking lot or our neighbors. When I finally got to bed about midnight, I could still hear the sounds. Suddenly it came to me, “check the garage”. I got up, armed myself with a flashlight and went outside. I kicked the garage door (we don’t have an automatic opener) in case there was a critter, human or otherwise, inside. I pulled open the door and looked inside. I was greeted by huge piles of dirt on either side of the door. It was clear an animal, probably our mystery animal/ground hog, had been trying to get out. I left the door open and went back to bed. The next morning we went out to assess the damage. 

The animal had chewed through the rope on the door. It chewed half of the rubber seal on the bottom of the door. [photo below shows the door raised & the rubber seal chewed off]

One hole extended at least two feet under the paver driveway and the hole on the other side went more than a foot and a half. The piles of dirt were 2-3 feet long and 6+inches deep in the deepest part. That had to have been one tired ground hog! We’re assuming it was the ground hog. 

We tamped as much of the dirt as we could back into the holes. We don’t want our driveway to collapse! We were amazed at how much of the dirt didn’t “fit” back into the holes. Several hours later we opened the garage door to show [our neighbor] where the damage had been done. Imagine our surprise when we saw that both holes had been dug out again! The ground hog must have been trapped in the garage again. Later in the day Joe was getting bricks from the narrow space where we keep the garbage cans. The ground hog ran past him and brushed his leg!"

We captured the groundhog below a year later. We don't know if it was the same one that dug up our garage or not. Neighbor Scott Chauvin took it down by the Olentangy River and released it. 

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added August 15, 2016 - The floor of the garage was asphalt on top of dirt.