SHTFblog.com - are YOU ready?

I’m having trouble with these little bastards again. When we moved into our house 4 years ago I had a groundhog living under our shed. I knew I wanted a garden eventually, so it was clear his living near it would be a problem, but I was not at the stage of planting a garden, so I figured - hey, he’ll move away when I rip down the shed anyway. The shed was very old and virtually falling into the ground. It could’ve been salvaged with some serious work, but it wasn’t worth it, and I didn’t like the location anyway.

The next year came and I was determined to DESTROY the shed. I did . . . but the groundhog didn’t move. He still chomped, chomped away getting bigger and bigger. We called him Fatty. Then I figured - well, in a few years I’ll build a garden, he’ll be gone by then. Meanwhile Fatty became more and more bold, eating closer and closer to the house, hanging out longer when we came outside. Then . . . one day, when I was walking into the basement, Fatty saw me coming and he pissed and moaned at me, hissing and doing his little aggressive groundhog thing.

“That’s IT!” I said. I can’t discharge a firearm where I live, so enter . . . the compound bow. The first shot came a few days later when his head was sticking out from under a pile of stacked slab wood. He was close - real close, and I was firing from the deck, the shot happened fast, and I figured he was so close I wouldn’t have to put the sights on him. That was a mistake. It went just above his head and landed hard in this piece of wood:

Yep, can’t get the arrow out. I’ve been meaning to cut it out since then, but I haven’t gotten to it. And that was a target tip. In any case, the arrow is likely toast.

The second shot came a few days after that. Fatty was further away, standing up, looking at me on the deck with a notched arrow.

“Pfffffffft!”
Fatty gets hit!

He rolls over, squirming and screeching and shit (I’m awful, I know). I felt bad for Fatty, but hey, he threw a hissy fit at me, and I don’t roll dat way. I start notching another arrow to help the process along when all of a sudden, Fatty rolls onto his feet and starts hauling ass to his little hidey hole, arrow through him and all. I rapidly notch the next arrow, take aim at the hole’s entrance and let it fly. The second arrow missed him by a fraction of a second.

I figure there’s no way he could’ve entered the hole with an arrow stuck through him, so I walk down expecting to see him stuck just inside the hole . . . nope, but I heard him whimpering inside. Sad, sad, I know . . . poor Fatty, evil Ranger Man. As near as I can figure is that the arrow must’ve turned toward the length of his body when he entered, which allowed him to at least get in far enough to be out of sight.

Fatty went down, but he took a 2nd arrow with him. I didn’t feel like recovering that one.

I now have a garden, albeit a small garden . . . . and as for Fatty . . . . I’ve had a visit from his heir to the throne.

- Ranger Man

BTW: Stay tuned for Part II of II

Also, imagine what life would be like with $200 a barrel oil.