I've been noticing this bizarre-looking animal creeping around my apartment ever since I returned to Ann Arbor in August. It reminded me at first of a giant rodent / beaver combination -- I was totally perplexed! What could this animal bee? Muskrat? No. Wolverine? Hell no. And then it finally hit me -- I was looking at a bonafide groundhog! I took this picture of the little feller today.

How bizarre! Growing up in North Carolina, my only concept of groundhogs was the famous Punxsutawney Phil, a Pennsylvanian groundhog known nationally for his alleged predictions of whether winter is soon to come to an end. Folks for some reason started believing that if he saw his shadow and was scared, there would another six more weeks of winter. If not, spring was soon to come. Weird.

The area around my apartment is home to a number of bizarre animals. A skunk lives very closeby -- I see him nosing around at night, and smell him even when I can't. I'm never quite sure if it's him, or my neighbors smoking themselves silly. The smells are eerily similar!