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RSherman

(576 posts)
Tue Jun 27, 2023, 06:35 AM Jun 2023

Can woodchucks run in reverse?

Recently, my mother told her friends and I a funny story about a woodchuck. I googled "poems about woodchucks" and could find only two and they were mean! So, I decided to write about her encounter:

ENCOUNTER WITH AN AGILE MARMOT

It’s woodchuck season again.
In fields and woodlands
they abound.
I drive slowly,
knowing they’re around.

The “land beaver” or “whistlepig”
is a climber like its squirrel cousin,
only much bigger.
“Woodchuck” has roots in
Native American:
wejack, woodshaw, wuchak,
and monax, the “digger”.

A few days ago
my mother told a story
of a ‘chuck that ran
in front of her motorcycle.
She claimed it pedaled straight backward.
Can they do that?
Surely, that’s a first????

The very next day
one waddled in front of my truck.
I braked and it turned
and walked back to the grass.
I guess his gears did not
include “reverse”.

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RSherman

(576 posts)
2. That's cool!
Tue Jun 27, 2023, 07:06 AM
Jun 2023

Well, I guess that gets to be your special secret! I've never seen one climb. I was skiing once and saw a porcupine high up in a tree. We were eye to eye from the chairlift.

doc03

(36,570 posts)
4. Fifty years ago we had thousands of acres of abandoned strip mine land
Tue Jun 27, 2023, 09:18 AM
Jun 2023

in eastern Ohio. It was our playground we had free rein to hunt, fish, shoot, swim, I even ran across a couple
patches of marijuana that I never got near. People had varmint rifles and bragged about the distance we
shot groundhogs from. I have seen groundhogs climbing trees before. The coal companies sold all that land now it
is posted no trespassing. I quit hunting about 25 years ago, I couldn't shoot anything now except with a camera.

Rebl2

(14,566 posts)
6. I have seen them do that too
Tue Jun 27, 2023, 10:05 AM
Jun 2023

My husband and I were on our deck several years ago and saw some baby groundhogs run up a willow tree a little way. Neither of us had seen that before.

Waterguy

(258 posts)
7. chucking the wood in the wooded glen
Thu Jul 27, 2023, 09:43 PM
Jul 2023

Deep in the valley of the forest
It was the wood chucker's paradise.
Where the rivers run their course /
The most perfect place to be/ if
you wanted to keep it green
you needed them.

You'd walk by and marvel at what they did because you understood.


To be a wood chucker, an architect, born to have that instinct,
in the exact correct place.
What Beauty
so succinct / whoa... Slow down Johnny, don't get the wrong
Idea. Think! Nature, you know, naturally sometimes human being's
go a tad bit too far with motor mechanized movement of Mother Earths
surface - like, where-ever...


Well, there's that, and then, there's all the hunting for beaver skins
That went down.

Note - the one thing may not have led to the other. But, I'm just saying!
They kind of did!!!

Peace!

mikelewis

(4,184 posts)
9. Now you know, you're just begging for some drunk a-hole to come up with the 'how much wood can...
Thu May 30, 2024, 07:56 PM
May 2024

... a wood chuck chuck' line... and I'm certain if this particular chat room had more visitors, the response would be witty and charming. But I must admit... I might be a little drunk.

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