No Groundhogs Were Harmed Making this Vest.

Before we moved back to Georgia, my husband and I lived in a small town called Belmont just outside of Charlotte, NC. When we found out we were moving we had one whole weekend to find a place… oh yeah, and we had 4 dogs at the time. We ended up in a tiny little house (around 500 sf) built in 1945 on a fairly large fenced in lot that was in major need of some TLC but was inexpensive and perfect for our pups.

Our tiny Hobbit Hole of a house in Belmont, NC

One day, I heard our youngest pup, Holden, barking… not a big deal since he did this sometimes when he was bored; then Lucy started which was still not that unusual, but when Clyde started barking I knew something was up… I went to the window and saw them all clustered close to the fence. I thought it was probably a neighborhood cat that was taunting them so I went out to run it off, but when I turned the corner and saw the culprit I outwardly exclaimed, “What the hell is that?!?!” As a girl who grew up in the woods of Hoboken, GA I was certainly no stranger to the occasional critter, but this rodent (?) marsupial (?) beast (?) was new to me. I tried to give the creature an escape route, but instead it decided to crawl inside one of the large holes in the crumbling foundation of our luxury home. I went back inside to get a flashlight to see if I could spot him under the house, but after a few minutes of searching various peepholes in to the crawlspace I started getting visions of “Tailypo” and scared myself back indoors.

I then whipped out my handy laptop and googled, “Rodents of North Carolina” where I stumbled across a picture of my Tailypo… Which was not so much a Tailypo as a groundhog/ woodchuck/ whistle-pig – turns out they’re the same animal (who knew?). Now I’m not sure if it was Punxsutawney Phil himself on holiday in the carolinas, but I hope the little guy had a cell phone somewhere on his person so he could call a cab and book it back home safely. So, today’s outfit is inspired by that little trespasser in hopes that he will remember that time I saved his life (when I could have thrown him to the wolves/ domesticated canines and made him into a REAL fur vest) and maybe NOT see his shadow today… Also if he could see about changing the name to “Whistle-Pig Day” that would be just dandy!