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YESTERDAY AFTERNOON MY YARD MAN had himself a wonderful time hitching up horses that had never before been hitched, and driving them around the meadow.  He had a guest here, another horse enthusiast, who joined in on this thrilling endeavor (Er, working with the horses very obviously quickens the pulse of The Yard Man, Reader Dear  [I can't say, however, that I was inside working like a dervish to finish my crossword puzzle so that I could join them.  (I'm just not equine-enlivened myself, Dear Reader)])  When the guest had left, and The Yard Man had escorted his horses back to the barn, he came into the house with new photos in his camera.  "Wanna see these pictures Christian took?" he asked me.

There I was, Dear Reader, fruitlessly searching my brain for the author of  An Awfully Big Adventure.  I couldn't come up with the  "Long-running Cartoon Network series" the puzzle was begging for, either.  I was ready to take a break.  So I threw aside the Sunday paper and settled in for a narrated show. 

But now, Viewer Dear, I am not going to pass along the horse pics to you. I'll admit my tale was all just a lead-in to the movie you're about to see.  It's one I discovered in The Yard Man's camera after I had curled up on the couch and enjoyed his digital display.

This movie features Baby Woodchuck eating the first real "forage-for-yourself" meal of her (or his) life.  


Isn't she (or he) just adorable?!
You may have wished for the equine display**, Viewer Dear, but surely you agree that rodents everywhere are in far greater need of the positive exposure  (Mickey and Minnie have been working the cuteness thing for a very long time, and I'll wager you still set out mouse-traps)!

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*"I took that last spring.  He was just sittin' there, 
didn't seem to be afraid of me," said The Yard Man. 

"Probably because she was only a baby," I said,
"didn't know enough to be afraid."

"Look how he reaches up with his little hands,
he said, "and knows how to pull the stems down."

"Yeah," I said. "She's so precocious."
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**Well, okay.  Here's one.

















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