Nature is wonderful! There are very few of us that ever get to know it intimately. Most of us are so detached from Nature�s beauty that we cannot comprehend its realities. That is why this little story is conveyed. It was written to bring all of you closer to Nature and it�s secrets.

I want to tell you a Nature story that is true and intimate. I want you to take a little time so that I might have a chance to bring you to a new level of awareness about Nature!

It is true that you should never try to tame wild creatures. They have an inbred genetic purpose for the world for which they alone are born. If you tame them you become an interloper. You are intruding into the ways of the wild for which you have no clue. Every now and then though, it happens by accident. Nature and humans meet and the two become inseparable! Something wonderful and amazing happens, and a Nature story is born! These stories are so special and rare. It may be that you have a Nature story too, and I hope that you do, but first, I want to tell you one of mine. I hope that it will touch your heart.

In the next multi-photo you see my wild friend standing in the autumn leaves when she was a bit older. In Pennsylvania most of us call them Groundhogs because they burrow numerous holes into the ground. Here they live, play, breed and raise their young in peace.In many other areas of the country they are known as Woodchucks or whistle pigs.They call them that because when they are startled they produce a sharp whistle and chuckling sound to warn their pups of danger.Farmers do not like them because their networks of tunnels can upset the farmers tractor, especially if the groundhog holes are on steep terrain. Sometimes a farmers horses and cows break a leg when they unwittingly step into a washed out tunnel. I know this can happen. Once, when I was out with a friend hiking he fell up to his waste into a washed out network of groundhog dens.He was there one second and then all of a sudden he just disappeared! I would't have thought that it could happen unless I had seen it for myself. I had to help pull him back out, after I had controled my laughter! In this case, the entire tunnel entrance was covered by high field grass that had hidden the hazard from everone and everything! It was hilariously funny only because he did not break a leg.

These photos were scanned from an old style 110 camera and are of poor quality. I wish we had digital back then but there were none that a person could afford. I have cleaned them up a bit but nothing beats a good digital photo.(The multi-Photo will take 5 minutes to DL on a standard Modem) Click Online Photo.

This picture looks so serene but let me tell you this. Woodchucks can really hurt when they nibble! They have razor chisel-like teeth, much like a squirrel. Have you ever watched a squirrel buzz through a walnut?! It doesn�t take long for them to do plenty of damage! Well, this little girl was a dandy! She never caused me to bleed one time! That is amazing to me and I raised her!

We called her Tank.The name that we gave this little one had more to do with the workings of a teenager's mind than with reality but it never mattered to her one way or the other. She was never a big woodchuck but that never stopped her from being a handful! She was fast too! Let me go back to our beginning.

We acquired this wild baby groundhog by accident and we could not take the chance that her mother would reject her or abandon her. There was no time for maybes or could have beens when we found her exposed and starving on the cold dark floor of our small warehouse. The mother woodchuck had a den on the other side of the wall and this little one had crawled through a crack in that outer wall. The crack was too small for the mother to crawl through. This little one didn�t even have her eyes open when we found her alone, lonely and exposed.

She had plenty of care. Tank always had a warm blanket to cuddle on or under with helpful human hands to support her and to look after her. There were four grown humans looking after her all of the time, and if the neighbor�s dog came a little too close it soon found out that it was not welcome! The same was true for any Tomcats that might get the wrong idea. We would send them packing while tank growled at them with the hair on her back raised high! We would scoop her up into our caring hands and take her inside where it was much safer.

To her little mind it was a very exciting new world with dangers all around! Her little mind was very curious, to the point of becoming a problem very quickly. You could not take your eyes off of her for a minute. Tank was always looking for something new to chew on! Unfortunately, She liked chewing on electrical cords! This was a major problem because her teeth were growing fast.It went something like this. Bad Girl! She like chewing on the sofa. Bad! Tank liked chewing on us. Ouch! Bad Girl again! Tank was harder to rear than we had suspected and everyone became a full time baby sitter and along with that a convenient human chewey toy!

Her apatite was voracious and she had no clue about what was good or what was bad. She loved to eat bread and cookies just like any other kid. This was not good for her teeth or her health and we tried to limit the obvious.Sometimes, we would lose control of the situation and strange things could happen, like this.

One day my mom left the lower cupboard door open and the lid to the flour barrel off as she was baking bread. Have you ever seen a white groundhog? I spotted her first. "Oh no mom! Tank�s in the flour barrel!" Bad Girl again! My mom wouldn�t dare grab her because Tank was making such a snarling fuss but I (little Tarzan) grabbed her anyway! I thought she was going to bite me real good but my fear was not founded in fact. she just made a lot of noise, that�s all! This little woodchuck could sound like a rabid monster when she wanted to make a fuss! I reached in and pulled her snarling, white, furry hulk out of there, but lucky for me, Tank never cut me! Temper flaring, She ran off and hid under our sofa and pouted for a while. That is the only time that she ever threw a temper tantrum that I can remember.She took off running through the house heading for the living room! It was not hard to find her though. I knew that under the sofa is where she was because that is where the white footprints led.

I knew from experiance where she would be. Tank had her own nest under the sofa, and if you didn�t get to read the daily paper before she stuffed it under there you were just out of luck! If she heard you rattle the paper she wanted it. I mean she wanted them all under the sofa! Newspapers weren�t to read as far as she was concerned. They were for stuffing her nest. She loved the daily Paper!The sunday edition was fine with her, too. She would pack a huge wad of it in her mouth and run with it under the sofa again. She was a little paper monster!

There was more to her than just fun. Tank loved to get her belly rubbed but when you did this you paid the price. She would chew on your fingers until you swore that they were bloody stumps. Ouch! Ouch! Ouch X's 10! I am telling you, she hurt really bad BUT She never ever scratched me to bleed or cut me once! That is an incredible fact.

Look at the next picture. Do you see that bench against the wall that I�m sitting on in the photo? Do you see how short Tank was?Same Photo She was a little midget, but if you put her down on the ground she would go in behind that railroad tie and as short as she was she would sneak up and grab me by the fat below my ribs with those sharp chisel-like teeth. When that happened I would come up off of that thing and I would yelp in pain! Little Devil, She just loved to do that to me and then she would laugh. She had her own funny woodchuck chuckle. I can�t describe the joy she got out of grabbing me but it made her do that little woodchuck chuckle every time! She was an ornery little midget. Bad Girl again! I grew so close to that little girl that I just can�t explain it. It was super-special.

I loved that little Woodchuck and I know that she loved me. They have their own kind of love but it is differant. They are wild to the bone but they love in their own way, too. You have to live it to know it. You have to let them chew on you real good for a while before you know it! When that happens you never forget it.

I realized early on that she would have to go back to the wild some day. I had to teach her to eat the wild dandelions and the wild plantain by eating them in front of her and then putting them in her mouth. At first, she didn�t want them and I thought I would have a problem with her switching to wild and natural food but I kept at it a few times and when she saw that I would eat them (most of the time faking it!) she would too. It was not long before she couldn�t seem to get enough of the dandelions! Chew, Chew, Chew, all day long!

I was very glad to have succeeded at showing her how to eat what she normally would have eaten as a wild child. With that hurdle aside, we began to let her out into the yard every day so that she could eat as much of the wild plant food as she could pack in. She began to put on weight and this was a very good sign. She was a growing girl and that made us both happy. This went on for I don�t know how long. Eventually, she became popular with all the neighborhood kids. It got to the point that she was just another one of the kids on our block.We lived out in the country about 4 miles from town and there were only about 6 kids for her to play with. Unfortunately, this would not last long. Here is the photo of another plant lover that you might enjoy!Click!

In the next photo you see her standing on the bench to our picnic table chewing on a dandylion stem as my brother Wade stands guard. Same Photo!

Boys will be boys, and we liked to rub snuff and chew tobacco just like other country boys do. Tank would see us putting the tobacco into our mouths, and naturally, she would want some. We usually gave her some of whatever we were eating, at the time, but not tobacco! One of the guys got the goofey idea that she would like to smell the tobacco so he held out a small leaf for her to sniff. She was standing on her hind legs and begging like she usually did when he offered her a smell of the stuff, but she was quicker than he was! Before he could draw it away from her she had a small portion of it in her mouth and was chawing away on it as though it was a great prize! When she swallowed it I about panicked! I told him he was stupid for doing it and he said he was sorry, but by then tank was sick! Oh man, I was mad! She heaved and heaved but scampered away in confused illness as she tried to fight off the nausea of downed tobacco! She disappeared from my sight as we helplessly watched on. She was too fast for me to latch onto. I was so mad about it I didn�t know what to do next. I told the guys that it just might kill her! I called them a bunch of idiots for what had happened and I told them to leave. I thought that she might come back if they were not around and I could give her some milk or something to dilute the effects of the tobacco. To my great sadness she did not return! I thought for sure that she had died in the woods nearby, and I was very hurt about it.

What I did not know is that Tank had taken the poison effects of the tobacco as an insult and a sign that it was time for her to leave our family. Wild animals think in ways that we do not entirely understand, even when we love them, and think that we know them. You can never be quite sure how they will react to a shocking human event. Despite that close bond to us, they are not human. All of the times we had fed her by hand she had trusted us that the food was good for her. Now, we had given her something to make her sick! She could not be expected to understand that it had been a mistake in foolishness. The sweet but powerful tobacco had made her so sick that I know she could not see straight for a while!

What I did not know was that she had ambled away only 75 feet distance and had found a hole under a large rock in a bramble thicket. This hole was an old groundhog borough from years gone by. It was hidden deep within a thicket near to my home but on the other side of a small hill. This is where she recovered from the tobacco and it is also where she made first contact with a male groundhog!

I looked and looked for any signs of her for days and months on end. I did not see her anywhere! I had hoped that she would return on her own if the tobacco hadn�t killed her but this did not happen. I was heartbroken. There was nothing I could do about it. The month of June went by and then the month of July with no sign of Tank anywhere. I had given up. I thought for sure that she had died from tobacco poisoning.

One day several months later I was mowing the lawn. I had mowed the lawn in one direction and had started back in the other when I spotted a groundhog about the size of Tank peering at me from the other side of my lawn. She was foraging through the grass as I approached her and I was surprised that this woodchuck did not run in fear. It was then that I spotted the two small groundhog pups behind her, but close nearby. I stopped in amazement, and with hopeful anticipation that just maybe it might be her.

I stopped the mower so that it would not spook them any further, and I stood motionless for a minute to study them. I decided to speak her name in a normal tone of voice to see how she would react. When I spoke her name she stopped foraging and stood erect looking in my direction. By now my heart was pounding because I felt sure that it was her. She had come close to me while I had been mowing the grass and had not run. This was not normal for her kind. She had the same look and the same body size of my wild long lost friend. I knew that a completely wild groundhog would never do this. This one trusted me enough to expose her pups to me, a human! I knew then when I approached slowly and she did not retreat that it was my wonderful long lost friend. I mentioned her name again and she stood erect once more. She looked toward me in recognition and then back at her two pups once again. This was her way of showing me her pride in her new family .

The tears of joy began streaming down my face as I spoke to my wonderful wild friend who had since become a mother. I was so happy to see them all! I told her how beautiful her children were. She stood erect with pride and recognition and without fear. I slowly approached to within about 10 feet of them and stopped. It was then that I could understand so much more. It amazed me that so much understanding between us could be, without the spoken word. We were communicating with a different language that only exists between two life forms that have a wild and earthly understanding of each other but an unusual life bond that connects them together. I, for the lack of a better word, call it love, but this is not accurate because it is an entirely differant kind of feeling that I have no words for. This moment was so wonderful and so defining that mere human words would not suffice.

With that said, I can now understand how it would be entirely possible for humans to have communicated with each other before the composition of any language that had words or basic phrases. I know that it can be done with the mind and other body language. I felt so special to experiance this and to be trusted in this way just one last time. I will never forget this as long as I live. She wanted me to see her pups! I was so overjoyed that she would do this and so happy that she had survived. I approached just a little more. She did not move.

I thanked her for trusting me enough to show me her pups and let her see the smile and joy on my human face. She noticed and appreciated it in her way but she would only let me get so close to them. Apparently to me, she did not want to take the chance that I would capture her and take her away from the freedom she now knew or her wild family. She wanted her pups to see me and for me to see them, but she wanted to raise them in the freedom that only Nature could provide.

Tank had finally made the conversion back to Nature that I had wanted her to make, but it happened unexpectedly, and in a way and with a price to be paid that I did not like. To this very day, I wish her parting had been with better circumstances, but then again, maybe this is what it took to make the break.

I watched them all in amazement for quite a while. In those days video cameras were for news reporters, and not cost effective for most individuals to own. I did not have a camera with me. Unfortunately, I missed the big one! I talked to her so that she could hear the same friendly voice that she had always known. I wanted her to hear my positive voice so that she would possibly understand that I did not wish to harm her again. I wanted her to know that I still cared and that I was sorry for what had happened. As it happened, She seemed to try, but who is to know just how deep they can really understand gestures and thought, coupled with intelligent dialog. Knowing her the way that I do, I would never underestimate her mental abilities to grasp my true meanings. She departed from my sight that day to never return. From that day, I knew that we were neighbors and that she watched me from time to time from the privacy of Nature�s bramble thickets, close to my home. I selfishly wanted more but wisely decided that this had to be good enough for me. Knowing that she was happy was such a comfort too. I felt that God had been blessed me with a special closeness to Nature that very few of our kind ever experience with the wild creatures of our world. When I think of her, my little midget is such a great memory. Nature is wonderful!

That next spring we all moved away but in my mind she is so very real, even to this day.

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