Column from April 24th edition of the Marmota Times reprinted with permission from Reginald Montgomery “Chuckie” Hogbottom, Order of the Woodchuck, Recipient of the medal of honor “Marmota Monax” September 2019, Knighted as Groundhog of the Realm, May 2022, Recipient of the Order of the Garter July 2023.

My dear friends. Happy Spring! It’s been wonderful to see so many of you out and about in the Green Hope gardens after our tedious hibernation period broken only by forays to our three Michelin star restaurant Le Marmiton a.k.a. the Green Hope Farm compost heap.

I appreciate all those who made this dream of our own restaurant a reality. Compliments in particular to the several families donating to our kitchen. I love how small humans hate a bread crust. This winter, so many of our most delectable entrees used these as our core ingredient.

Yes, it is always good to catch up at Le Marmiton, even if a little tense what with the possums, raccoons, squirrels, and other interlopers who rudely expect to be seated and fed without making a reservation.

But on to the business of this article- our little Marmot against Molly skirmish and how it’s going.

It’s always worth a chuckle to see our silly human sporting her backpack sprayer of garlic spray. As you all know, this never really slows our roll. There is always some tasty morsel she’s missed….. like that tray of baby broccoli and cauliflower seedlings I found yesterday afternoon in the hoop house. Yum!

Many of you have expressed concerns that Molly has decided to get serious about our activities at the farm. I just want to calm you down and remind you how very ineffectual her efforts have been.

Let’s face it, an eight pound dog is not a concern.

And Molly’s threats to use a “Have a Heart” trap to take us across the Connecticut River to Vermont? We all know that is exactly how we get our year abroad program done. Thank goodness when it is time to return home there are many Vermonters happy to bring us back over the river to New Hampshire again.

You may ask, how did I hear of her heated discussion about trapping us? I had my cousin, a graduate of the Central Marmota Agency School of Espionage, Mauricio “Rico” Montgomery build a den/ listening station under her back deck. This was a real victory for our data collection as the den is five feet from her kitchen door. Rico likes to sunbath on the deck and will even frollick with Sheba, her dog companion, but most of the time Rico just listens for data.

Rico also reported a meeting this week in which a rebuilt vegetable garden fence was discussed with a man with a big red truck and back hoe. There was talk of using the backhoe to create a trench around the perimeter of the garden so as to pin the fence to bedrock. This kind of high tech solution which would prevent our easy tunneling under the fence is what she needs, but let’s face it, she has long been prone to more half baked deterrents that keep us in the garden and her gnashing her teeth. Let’s just hope she remains consistent in her “Never expect the Spanish Inquisition” approach, and the man in the red truck is never heard from again.

This season she has made her usual harmless moves with garlic spray everywhere and frost cloth on the spring crops. Not to worry! Peas and beans need pollinators so it’s just a waiting game for us. We’ll have our usual feast of delectable garden treats when the frost cloth has to come off for the pollinators. Thanks to the cloth, everything will be blemish free.

So my dear Marmota Monax beloveds. Carry on with your garden rampages, restaurant feasts, shameless sunbathing and tussles with the harmless humans and petite dog. We shall prevail.