Groundhog Tribute

Back in the summer of this year a groundhog got hit by a car and died outside the hospital where I work. Its body made its way to the side of the road and dried to a husk beside the parking lot fence.

A short time later this sign appeared just above its corpse. It was a laugh. I love a good bit of dark humor.

The sign was made of paper though, so it didn't last.

Unfortunate.

*Cut to me: I had been thinking about trying my hand at carving for some time. Months, maybe even years. Who can say? The thought sat in the back of my head for ages, but I lacked the motivation to actually go ahead and give it a try. I wasn't inspired.

After the grounhog memorial had disintigrated, a thought randomly popped into my head, "Wouldn't it be funny if I carved a tribute plaque to the dead groundhog!?!"

The thought of continuing the joke that someone else had started was enough for me.

I found some scrap wood I had laying around, a nice piece of red oak, and began sketching out some ideas. I looked up some inspiration images online and drew out a few different versions but in the end I decided to go with the same image as the original tribute.

I modified the original slightly by adding in some lower teeth.

I thought that it added a little something extra, as if the final memorial was an image of the groundhog in its prime, rather than its last days on earth. Fierce and powerful.

After transferring the image to the wood I started to carve out the image with a chisel.

I haven't done much carving in my life and the last time that I had was when I was a child, maybe between the age of 8 and 12 years old. Back then I had carved a few little figures or wooden plaques with my grandpa. I actually remember a lot of the tips that he taught me back then but this project also involved a lot of figuring things out for myself.

Right away I realized that red oak was not an easy wood to carve. Its a hardwood and chiseling it was more like digging away at the individual wood fibres.

Maybe people generally do this style of carving using softer woods?

I experimented with different tools along the way including different chisel sizes and knives and even a dremmel that I have. After changing up parts of the design I eventually got the carving to a point where I was satisfied. It still seemed very incomplete to me overall though.

I ended up buying an inexpensive wood burner online to add in some extra detail work.

I burnt in the "Not Forgotten" phrase and the year, just in case the piece actually lasts the test of time.

I had a bunch of different wood stains left over from various projects that I have completed, so I added some of that to give the carving an aged petina look.

I used two different stains, one light and one dark, to give it some depth.

Adding in some paint and some color was sort of an organic progression. I wanted the eye to pop so I dabbed a white dot on it, and I wasn't satisfied with how dark the wood burner got the mouth so I painted that portion black. The leaves came next and the flower after that. I had all of the tools and material on hand already so this whole project cost me nothing except my time and the $30 I spent on the wood burner, which I will use for another project in the future I'm sure.

After all of that I sprayed the finished piece with a clear coat to give it some additional weather protection.

The coating will likely where off quickly outside in the elements so I'm not really sure how it will age. Only time will tell I suppose.

The last thing to do was to put it up at work in the original spot that the paper tribute was taped.

I wanted this thing to be an Easter egg for my coworkers, something that they would stumble upon randomly. I didn't want anyone to see me putting it up and I was nervous with anxiety all weekend thinking about it. I decided to go into work 30 minutes early on a Monday when it was still dark outside amd before my coworkers arrived at the parking lot. I had never been to work that early so I didn't know what to expect but figured that the lot would be empty and dark. I couldn't be more wrong about that. The previous week they had installed new overhead lights and they lit up the entire lot with practically mid afternoon brightness. The other thing that I hadn't anticipated was the fact that the parking lot is actually insanely busy 30 minutes before I usually arrive at work. The nursing staff work 12 hour shifts and they start work before I do and other positions at the hospital also work different hours. Apparently everyone seems to arrive at the lot exactly when I was planning on installing my plaque in secret. I sat in my car for 15 minutes with my heart pounding, watching an endless stream of cars come in and hospital emoloyees walk directly passed the spot I planned to install it. At one point I thought "fuck it, I'll hold off on installing it for now and figure out another time," but then I caught a break and a small windows of no people appeared. I jumped out of my car and went for it. I had my battery powered impact gun and four 3 inch deck screws and went to work screwing the plaque into the fence post. The gun started ratcheting at the end of each screw which echoed throughout the quiet lot. Halfway through the install I saw an employee out of the corner of my eye heading up the sidewalk toward me. I kept my head straight forward and I didn't look at them and finished up before they got there and quickly left the area without looking back. Nothing would have happened if anyone had seen me, no one would have cared in the slightest I'm sure, but my heart was pounding through my chest the entire time anyway, all the way until I got into my office and sat down at my desk. In that moment the thought crossed my mind, "Oh shit, what if in my haste I installed the thing upside down!?!" I ended up going back on my lunch break to make sure that I had installed it correctly. The funny thing was that at lunch time in the daylight, the lot was entirely dead of people, so that would have actually been the perfect time to put it up... Oh well, it was done. All that was left was to wait for the reaction of my work colleagues.

I mentioned that I wanted this to be an Easter egg for them, so I didn't say anything about it. I figured that one of them would happen upon it and say something like "hey did you see that someone put up a new plaque for the gopher?" But then Monday passed and Tuesday and Wednesday without any word and I started to think that maybe I installed it too low and no one has actually seen it? It wasn't until Friday that a coworker finally mentioned it and after casually prodding my other colleagues about it I found out that everyone had seen it right away and just hadn't said anything. In my head I'm like,

"Wait, you saw a wooden plaque dedicated to a dead groundhog and you didn't think to mention it to me!?! Man, I thought we were tight yo!"

Things don't always go as planned I suppose. Such is life. But anyway, its been up for about a month now and its still there, a permanent tribute to a dead groundhog located at the hospital parking lot for all to see and remember.

What do you think? Do you have any critiques or criticisms of the carving? Any tips or pointers for me or any funny stories you want to share? Let me know in the comments.