At intervals in the last month my wife and I spent several days in sequence forty or fifty miles north of New York City, visiting a semi-rural house with a largish screened porch that looks out on another such building about two car lengths away up a grassy hill. Under the second building lives a groundhog, or woodchuck, that once in a while when things are very quiet emerges to snuffle around in the grass looking for bugs or other small wild food items. It never strays very far and is very cute. I will call it groundhog A. I think it is female for the following reason. On one of its very rare excursions, another groundhog (B) suddenly appeared, and, after snuffling around ten feet away from groundhog A for a quarter hour, B leisurely waddled over to A, started waving its tail furiously in every possible way, and then the two gently bumped noses and perhaps exchanged food items for a solid half minute. B and A then separated a little, snuffled the grass for a period until B went one way and A went under the house where it dwells. So much for that. Love among the groundhogs it seemed.
Then, more recently, another rodent (but not a groundhog) appeared when A was snuffling. It was a very active squirrel, which approached quite close to A, waved its tail even more actively if possible, repeatedly rolled over on its back, waved its tail some more, darted up and down a big nearby tree, and repeated this performance with variations and crescendos, but was unable to get even one iota of interest from groundhog A. There was no nuzzling or anything like that. Eventually, the squirrel grew tired and climbed that tree, while A snuffled on.
I think, as an amateur, that the squirrel was overcome with admiration for A’s scent and wanted to be a part of a rodent love affair. Groundhog A would seem to have had powerful bit of musk or whatever rodents of various sizes employ, a scent sufficiently effective that the squirrel just couldn’t believe it wasn’t meant for him.
Moral of the story: None. Unless someone can find one and express it in a nice way. Lewd jokes and rude slurs aren’t encouraged. But it all was fun to watch!
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