Jeff Permar
Appearances
This American Life
853: Groundhog Day
The garden was a thing of beauty. Jeff had just moved into a new house in Middletown, Delaware, kind of a rural area. The house did not have a garden, so he built one. Jeff is a do-it-yourself kind of guy, handy with stuff, fixing cars, things around the house. The garden he makes is pretty big. He turns over all the soil, plants rows of seeds. Takes a long time.
This American Life
853: Groundhog Day
But gardening, as the writer Margaret Atwood has noted, is not a rational act. In nature, plants do not grow in tidy, pristine, labeled rows. In fact, nature does not care at all about your little setup. Jeff was on vacation when it happened. A friend was watering his garden for him.
This American Life
853: Groundhog Day
Jeff is really upset. He has no idea what is eating his vegetables. So he sets out a trap. One of those cage things that closes when an animal goes inside. And how did that work? A complete failure. Goes out to check on the trap. Empty. Food in it untouched. What is eating the garden? Jeff runs through a list of possibilities.
This American Life
853: Groundhog Day
Okay, I never lived where you live in Delaware, so I'll trust you. Okay. Jeff thinks, enough with this. It really is driving him kind of mad. So he gets a motion detector camera. He borrows it from his brother, uses electrical tape to tape it to this old bucket he has, and sticks it in the garden. It's one of those cameras that sends videos to your phone. So Jeff waits.
This American Life
853: Groundhog Day
And I just want to pause here to describe the cinematic perfection of this next moment. What Jeff sees at first in the video is nothing. Like the camera's triggered off something blowing in the breeze, you see a log in the background and the garden fence. And then, a groundhog pops up. With what appears to be a cucumber in its paws, rapidly chewing. It is staring right into the camera, head on.
This American Life
853: Groundhog Day
Every day it was, get up, drive to work, alert on phone. Groundhog. Get up, drive to work, alert on phone. Groundhog. The only thing that changed was the image. Groundhog with one of Jeff's tomatoes. Groundhog with zucchini. Groundhog with corn. Never peppers somehow. Apparently he didn't like peppers. He's in a Groundhog Day situation with an actual groundhog.
This American Life
853: Groundhog Day
I feel like once you name the groundhog, you're crossing some kind of line, you know? I think you lost in that moment.
This American Life
853: Groundhog Day
At some point, a female groundhog turns up. Presumably she was Chunk's partner. Jeff names her Nibbles. But now he has two groundhogs. Weirdly, both of them would pop up on camera together, facing the same direction, each eating something of his. Jeff, desperate now, has one last idea for how to get out of this endless loop.
This American Life
853: Groundhog Day
And when I heard it, it seemed both adorable and completely unlikely to work. The following year, when it's time to plant the garden again, he goes out with his shovel, turns over more earth, and... I gave them, like, their very own garden.
This American Life
853: Groundhog Day
A reporter for the website The Dodo heard about the story. The resulting video is titled, Guy Builds Veggie Garden for Family of Ground Dogs. Which I saw and had questions about. That's why I called Jeff in the first place. I did not see how that was going to work. Sure, now the groundhogs have their own garden that does not have some big fence around it.
This American Life
853: Groundhog Day
But wouldn't they eat their vegetables and then still break through the fencing into his like before? What's to stop them? Did the plan actually work? The goal is to get them to stay out of your garden. Do they stay out of your garden?
This American Life
853: Groundhog Day
That's kind of genius, I have to say. It works. You said for the most part.
This American Life
853: Groundhog Day
I feel like you started out one place and you ended up in a very different one.
This American Life
853: Groundhog Day
Junk is still there. Jeff last saw him in the fall. He's probably hibernating under the shed. It's been seven years at this point. Which is old for a groundhog. Though they can live longer, it helps to have a reliable food source.