Our Little Backyard Friends

On this Halloween night that Stephen and I chose not to celebrate (well, we did have a great dinner, ice cream!, and watched a movie together), I decided t0 post about something or somethings that are very near and dear to our hearts. 

One of the things that we enjoy most about our new home in Wake Forest is the little forest and creek that are directly behind our townhouse. It's great for many reasons: it's fairly quiet, it keeps the sun out on rare Saturday mornings that we get to sleep in, AND it is also the perfect environment for a large quantity of groundhogs that come out of the woods every day to scavenge for food. Although we know not everyone loves the groundhogs as much as we do (probably because they like to feed on our neighbors potted plants), for some reason we never get tired of them. In fact, after 3 months

 of living here we still love to watch them play behind our house while we sit at our kitchen table eating dinner. I personally will sit for a long time just mesmerized. We've also become

quite the experts on groundhogs! Here are some fun facts that you probably never wanted to  know about groundhogs: 

1. Groundhogs don't always stay on the ground. In fact, often we see them sitting in the trees.

2. My dad says they are also know as "whistle pigs" which is true because one day I heard a whistle coming from outside and when I looked the groundhogs were fighting over a piece of food which I guess would be fact #3. 

3. Groundhogs fight and they are vicious! I wasn't able to get a picture because I couldn't believe this was even happening.

4. Groundhogs eventually hibernate (although

 we've discussed they may decide not too 

because of all the food they've been getting) and they get fatter by the day.

5. Groundhogs eat EVERYTHING. Here is the list of what we have personally witnessed them eat and usually caught on camera as well: frosted flakes, oatmeal, corn kernels, bread, peaches, pretzels, flower petals, peanuts, candy corn pumpkins, burnt bottoms

to buttered biscuits, and apple slices. We aren't exactly buying extra food for them but decided it would be better to feed the groundhogs our extra food then to just throw it away. 

We love the groundhogs. We live in campus housing and aren't able to have pets, so for now we enjoy marveling at these crazy little guys. Sorry to any upset neighbors that aren't as fond as we are!