There is a lovely park as part of WildCat Canyon near where all three of our daughters live. The park includes picnic areas which you can reserve for parties, open areas for playing, and trails you can hike.
The Eldest reserved an area this afternoon as a good place to have a bunch of toddlers and friends for a birthday celebration for Lev. The kids seemed to have a good time as did the parents.
Plus there was an additional, and not particularly invited guest.
This particular gopher popped up next to the picnic table. Noah attempted to discourage the beast by plugging his hole with that rock. Nope, the rock got pushed aside and mad digging ensued.
The best anyone could do was to keep the kids away and tamp down the area. Obviously, he was here first, but no one wanted a toddler to step in a hole either.
Gophers set up shop on the playground at my kids’ elementary back in the day, and during recess some boys were stomping on the tunnels and mounds.
My (fourth grade I think?) son was incensed at the cruelty of that and reached into a hole to pick up the gopher and cuddle it and protect it from those guys.
It bit him, of course.
He got sent to the school nurse, who did not call me! Nobody told me till my abashed kid admitted this had happened, like he’d done something wrong or something, but I thanked him for his empathy for the little thing (but don’t do it again.) The pediatrician said the gopher had a definite reason to bite that wasn’t rabies, and that they don’t generally get rabies anyway, and that was that.
But yeah. You don’t want to trip over their digging. You got a great picture, though, and it sounds like you all had a great time.
and the kids had an even better time. The gopher seemed to attract more adult interest than from the toddlers.