AND THEN THERE WAS ONE

The date is December 3rd and all my small neighbors, who either hibernate or just take a long Winter's nap, have long since done so. I have watched as each of them headed groggily off to sleep. The chipmunks who will nap and nibble upon their vast storehouses of accumulated wealth throughout the long cold months ahead, were the first to go. Then the skunks, who WILL awaken periodically to have a nosh to keep up their 'strength'  (PHEEEW!!!), finally called it a day.  And one by one, all the many woodchucks we have been 'blessed' with have all gone to bed.

Well, almost all!  Each morning, at dawns early light, a lone woodchuck continues to lumber to the goose feeder.  Now it HAS been a very mild Fall, I'll grant you, but still, all his cronys called it quits weeks ago!  Even the day that an early snow treated us to a sneak peak of the beautiful Winter ahead by gently settling on every tiny limb and twig, (AND the little chuck), STILL he persisted in scoffing down that addictive goose chow that tantalizes every creature who tastes it.

I have often wondered whats in that stuff that makes it so very irresistible!  I do detect a hint of  molasses, but otherwise it very closely resembles the stove chow that our pellet stove eats.  Not all that appetizing looking!  But it does seem to call them in from near and far!  From the deer right down to the chipmunks and assorted rodents, I have yet to see an animal who, once having tasted it, does not return regularly to enjoy it again and again.  Now I do not begrudge a meal to any living thing, but it does feel like we are singlehandedly putting out a buffet for every creature in the township!!  I wonder if they tell their friends about us or if the feed is wafting out an aroma (undetectable to the human nose) in a five mile radius!

Each day I watch to see if that little woodchuck will appear and darned if he doesn't!!  I wonder if he is the same guy who came out last year, in the middle of a snow filled harsh Winter, to have a quick nosh before heading back home.  Boy, HE had to have been dreaming about that feed to brave such freezing temperatures and deep snow just to have a meal, when he should have still been fast asleep!  My only hope is that THIS guy WILL  go home to bed one day soon, and not become "the woodchuck who refused to hibernate"!!!