The Garden Invasion
Six years ago, Will Greene’s garden was under siege.
Tomatoes, cucumbers and his other beloved vegetables were disappearing in chunks. He couldn’t figure out what was eating them, so he installed a security camera.
Source/Image Screenshot Credit: The Dodo via Youtube Video
When he checked his phone at work, he received an alert that a groundhog had defiled the produce right under the lens – the little jerk practically strutted.
Source/Image Screenshot Credit: The Dodo via Youtube Video
The Escalating Battle
The man also took it upon himself to find a trick to outsmart the groundhog, which he nicknamed ‘Chunk’.
He raised the fences and piled logs in front of the garden, but Chunk always found a way in.
Every day, the groundhog would emerge into the view of the camera, then sit there, smug as a pig, munching away as though to say: ‘Ha! You see what I can do?’
Source/Image Screenshot Credit: The Dodo via Youtube Video
The battle went on for a while like this. Then one day, the man went outside to find that a fat tomato he had been looking forward to eating had a fresh bite out of it.
And he said to himself: ‘OK, you win. I guess you have as much right to the land as I do.
The Arrival of Family
On another occasion, expecting another Chunk story, the man saw, to his surprise, two groundhogs in the camera feed. It turned out that Chunk had brought his girlfriend, Nibbles, over to enjoy the garden bounty alongside him.
Soon, more and more little groundhogs showed up, and the man called the youngsters ‘baby chunks’, and shared photos of them on his Facebook page, to the delight of his Facebook friends.
A Garden for Everyone
The story has continued, and the man took a touching choice: rather than continue to fight the groundhogs, he and his family decided to coexist with them, carving out a clearly demarcated corner of the yard for the groundhog family.
His family was all in: his two boys helped daily, and his mom was inspired to create a garden of her own with his help.
He thought about his grandfather, who had taught him everything he knew about gardening and who died at 99, a man of green thumbs.
Harmony and Understanding
Witnessing the events of the groundhog family drove home a broader feeling.
Seeing the moment when Nibbles and her babies, one named Chibbles after his mother, tried to worm their way into a tomato or carrot for a quick snack was moving.
The underlying message was clear: these animals were not so different from us.
They were just another family trying to live, trying to impart onto their little ones the things that are necessary for survival.
This garden saga – which started as one fraught with conflict – became one of coexistence and shared appreciation for the simple pleasures of life.
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