Posted on 03/11/2017 1:29:09 PM PST by JoeProBono
I was making a joke, since “groundhog” and “woodchuck” are exactly the same animal. The proper name for them is “marmot.”
In Mongolia, they eat them. I was spared the experience, however, since the Mongolians apparently find them so delicious that they barely exist outside of protected parks.
So, I was just pulling your leg a bit when I told you that in the part of the farm country that I grew up, there were no groundhogs, only pesky woodchucks. But that is true. Nobody there to this day speaks of groundhogs when they want to go out woodchuck huntin,' after the fields are mown and the hay brought in, before the fall plowing begins. That's when these crop- and equipment-damaging rodents can't hide in tall grass any longer.
At least, that's the way it was 60 or 70 years ago, back in the day.
When I was growing up in California, I knew woodchucks only because of the tongue twister, and had heard of groundhogs only because of groundhog day. It wasn’t until I had lived back east for several years that I finally found out what a groundhog looks like, and several years later when I learned that a woodchuck is exactly the same animal.
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