Gophers

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.

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About Holly

fiber person - knitter, spinner, weaver who spent 33 years being a military officer to fund the above. And home. And family. Sewing and quilting projects are also in the stash. After living again in Heidelberg after retiring (finally) from the U.S. Army May 2011, we moved to the US ~ Dec 2015. Something about being over 65 and access to health care. It also might have had to do with finding a buyer for our house. Allegedly this will provide me a home base in the same country as our four adult children, all of whom I adore, so that I can drive them totally insane. Considerations of time to knit down the stash…(right, and if you believe that…) and spin and .... There is now actually enough time to do a bit of consulting, editing. Even more amazing - we have only one household again. As long as everyone understands that I still, 40 years into our marriage, don't do kitchens or bathrooms. For that matter, not being a golden retriever, I don't do slippers or newspapers either. I don’t miss either the military or full-time clinical practice. Limiting my public health/travel med/consulting and lecturing to “when I feel like it” has let me happily spend my pension cruising, stash enhancing (oops), arguing with the DH about where we are going to travel next and book buying. Life is good!
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2 Responses to Gophers

  1. AlisonH says:

    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.

    • Holly says:

      and the kids had an even better time. The gopher seemed to attract more adult interest than from the toddlers.

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