We’ll begin this true story by stating the fact that our summer camp office is an old restored barn. Back in the early 1990’s as Tate’s Day Camp started to grow, it quickly became apparent that we were going to need some office space. Of course, this is Tate’s, so we don’t just think outside of the box, we actually got out of the box and threw it away many years ago . . . but that’s another story for another day.
We came to work a year ago, and there he was, sitting in the front yard of the camp office. “WHAT IS THAT?” “I think it’s a beaver,” someone remarked. “No, that can’t be right, beavers don’t live under old barns.” “Well, whatever it is just ran under our porch.”
A few days passed, and one day our electronic sensor that monitors our front porch continued to beep and beep, but no one was there. And then we saw him. He was sitting between two shrubs in the landscaping beneath the front porch. “IT’S A GROUNDHOG!”
Being the astute camp professionals that we are, we asked ourselves, “What should we do?” Of course the answer was, “LET’S FEED HIM.” And we did. We started with things like banana peels and oranges. We quickly learned that he didn’t seem to like citrus, but banana peels and cookies seemed to be a hit.
Slowly he started to warm up to us coming and going. Our office manager, Kimery, named him Herbie. Often he would be in the yard to greet us when we arrived, but most often he would be out in the late afternoons basking in the sun, and on some days when we’d leave, Herbie actually seemed to wave goodbye.
Then, one day we got a big surprise. We looked out and there was Herbie sitting in the front yard, but he had some guests. We suddenly realized that Herbie was an abbreviated name that is short for Herbina. Yep – you guessed it . . . baby groundhogs. Kimery quickly named them the Herbtinis and someone in the office remarked, “I guess we’d better start eating more bananas.”
That was one year ago, and last week we captured some pictures of Herbina. She’s still doing well, living under our office, and eating our treats. The question is . . . will we have any little Herbtinis showing up again this year? Stay tuned. We’ll keep you posted.