My Groundhog Days

When being a homeowner also means being an apex predator

Last week, I spotted a large, rotund groundhog peeping out of a hole near the edge of my property, and the sight of that big, fat mama filled my heart with joy.

This is not how groundhogs used to make me feel.

When I moved to Beacon back in 2014—following four intense years of construction on a mixed-use building in Brooklyn—I was burnt out and hoped to buy a house that just needed in a nice interior renovation. But when I first walked down the lot that…