Another new critter in our yard

About a month ago I was in my backyard in mid-afternoon enjoying the birds and the sun and mulling over a blog post, when out of the corner of my eye I saw something moving across where our yard meets the field. It's normal to see squirrels and rabbits, but we live right on the edge of town, so occasionally we do see some wilder critters. The little guy stopped and inspected our wood pile and compost pile, then trucked right under my neighbor's shed. It was obvious he or she knew where they were heading and had been there before-no doubt to their nest.

About three years ago, we had another of these critters hanging around with her babies, and we determined it was a woodchuck (aka a groundhog). Who knows, maybe it's one of the babies from three years ago, returning to familiar ground. In the back of my mind, I wondered what would happen if the creature ventured into the fenced in part of our backyard and came in contact with small but mighty Rosie. I don't have to worry about Abby because she has no interest in the local wildlife and prefers to be in the house. Rosie on the other hand wants to be outside as much as possible, and is quite protective of her backyard. Remember the baby bunny slaughter.

Well, last week it happened. Rosie met up face to face with the woodchuck. We heard Rosie barking up a storm and found she had the woodchuck backed up against the fence about 10 feet from the house. My husband called Rosie in, and luckily she chose to obey and the woodchuck eventually made his way out of the yard. They can be quite fierce when corned so we were quite relieved nothing happened.

There's been no return visit by Mr. Woodchuck to our yard. We've seen him crossing the street cutting through nieghbors' yards to make his way back to the field, but he's steering clear of Rosie's domain to live another day. Life in the "almost country" is never boring.