Christina is the owner of Local Groundhog Restaurant where she serves up delicious dishes for the locals.
Well… sort of.
If you mean local groundhogs, turkeys, deer, and other critters… then, yes.
Local Groundhog Restaurant is actually just her backyard where she leaves out food for the local animals to eat.
And it all started with one groundhog.
“When I open the curtains this morning, there’s a groundhog waiting for me,” Christina explained in a video.
“He was a baby groundhog and he started coming up to the door like ‘What are you doing in there?’ He would hang out and he would always have a very expressive face.”
After that first encounter, the groundhog, who she named Cutie, kept coming back again and again.
“It’s always funny when it’s raining out because you just see a little nose through the mist,” Christina told The Dodo. “When I started to put food on the steps, that’s when Cutie started to be a real part of our household. I did not expect to be the chef-owner of a groundhog restaurant but he always stuck around.”
Cutie, however, prefers bananas. Which makes sense because according to Mass Audubon, groundhogs love fruit like plantains, raspberries, cherries, and blackberries.
When Christina has something else for him, he usually isn’t super thrilled.
But, he’ll take it. And he did that for four years. He eventually started to bring his girlfriend around. And when his son, Dustin, was born he brought Dustin along too.
“The fact that Cutie has been coming around for four years makes it a really special relationship. He’s a wild animal but he really seems to enjoy coming around and spending some time with me which is really nice so it was really fun seeing him have his girlfriend stop by then him becoming a dad to Dustin.”
Once Dustin got the courage to walk up to Christina’s door after seeing Cutie do it, so did other local animals.
There are lots of animals who live in the wooded area behind Christina’s house.
You’ll find a deer and her fawn, multiple turkeys, and Cutie’s gang all hanging out in the backyard at the same time.
“More and more it seems like they see this as their local watering hole,” Christina said. “It’s really strange because I live in the suburbs. I don’t live in a rural area but I do have a little menagerie outside.”
Christina says she doesn’t mind playing “chef” to all of the local wildlife and that she hopes they’ll all continue visiting her yard for years to come.
“I certainly hope that Dustin will bring his kids by,” she says. “I find comfort in knowing that they’re living their natural lives but a really awesome version of their natural lives, where they have plenty of access to delicious food and a comfortable setting to raise their families and to go about living their happy groundhog lives.”
Check out Local Groundhog Restaurant in the video below.
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