Don’t be fooled. He might be cute, but he’s a nuisance.

Let me back up.

We’ve always had a groundhog on our property. They’re very common in Virginia. The year we moved in, he was living under one of our outbuildings, and we’d see him poking around the yard and eating grass and just generally doing groundhog things. We didn’t think much of it.

That, apparently, was a mistake.

Six years later, he’s invited his friends to move in. Now we have three groundhogs. And one of them can climb trees. Did you know groundhogs could climb trees? Because I didn’t.

I did some Googling to see just how urgent an issue this is, since I generally don’t like to intervene with nature when I don’t have to.

The good news: Groundhogs are typically not aggressive or violent.

The bad news: They can wreak havoc on a property, and they’ve been known to carry fleas, ticks, sometimes rabies, and various diseases, though they’re more likely to cause property damage than to make people sick.

So, I think we need to make some phone calls. I don’t know if the situation we have here warrants their removal or not – they’ve stayed away from the main house, and from us and our dog. But, I think we’ve reached our groundhog limit, and I know there are ways to remove them humanely, if that’s necessary.

After all, you know what they say: Three’s a crowd.