I consider myself to be an animal lover, but I have also concluded that the groundhog is the animal I love the least.

My attitude is not based solely on my dislike for most of the predictions made by Punxsutawney Phil, but it’s hard to ignore the fact that little more than 24 hours after that famous rodent emerged from his Pennsylvania home and saw his shadow, the temperature had dropped to about 8 degrees Fahrenheit in Belmont County. Tradition says that when he sees his shadow, we are all in for another six weeks of winter.

For me at this time of year, all that prognostication accomplishes is to solidify my case of the winter blues. I have had enough of feeling cold all the time, and I am ready to soak up some warm, spring sunshine.

But, as I said, my beef isn’t just with Phil. I have a bit of a history with groundhogs, or woodchucks as some people call them.

Living in Ohio, of course we have all seen groundhogs. They pop up on roadsides all the time and make themselves at home on your lawn or in your garden, especially if you live in a smaller, more rural community. I remember being regularly amused by a groundhog in the Dayton area when I was in college at Wright State University. That particular rodent had a favorite spot for watching traffic pass by. Nearly every day when I would drive past in the afternoon, he would be perched atop a specific guardrail post along my way home. Apparently, no other post would do, as he was always in the same spot, sitting up on his back haunches watching as we all made our way through our days.

Back here in Belmont, I have been dismayed to learn that I can block their holes with wood, rocks, bricks and even sheets of metal, but that will not deter the persistent woodchuck or woodchucks that live in the neighborhood from making their way beneath my porch.

Each and every time a try to stop them from getting underneath there, they simply make another hole a few feet away — and they don’t mind gnawing through our wooden shake siding in the process.

These pesky critters also present a challenge during gardening season. Being herbivores, the temptation of our growing vegetables seems to be too much to resist. So, every so often, I discover green tomatoes with chunks chewed out of them and other plants that are sheared off by sharp teeth with no sign of deer tracks to be found. When inspect the perimeter of my growing plot, I almost always find a hold that I could tick my head through chewed in the bottom of our fence.

According to National Geographic, groundhogs can grow up to 2 feet tall and can weigh around 13 pounds. They live all across the eastern United States, except for some southern areas such as coastal Georgia and Florida, and throughout much of Canada. They tend to burrow under open areas when they aren’t making themselves at home beneath portions of our buildings.

Now of course groundhogs aren’t the only animals that can be a nuisance in our region. Nobody wants to bump into an unsuspecting skunk in the dark. And squirrels can be pests, too, stealing bird seed and even entire feeders.

Deer can cause even more damage to a garden than a groundhog can. Not only do they help themselves to whatever part of your harvest that they want if they get access to your plot, but they often trample other plants in the process.

But, for me, groundhogs seem to be the most defiant of the bunch, usually refusing to run away when they have their eye on a prize in your garden. Rarely have I encountered a deer just casually eating its way across my lawn in the middle of a summer afternoon. But our resident groundhog — he simply sits up and looks at me as he continues to chew unless I make a close approach.

Squirrels and rabbits tend to scatter as soon as they see you, but not that groundhog. It almost feels like he is mocking me, showing me that he is here to stay and will do as he pleases.

Of course I haven’t seen him in a while. He is holed up in a burrow — or beneath my porch or under our store building — hibernating until about this time of year, when males emerge from their dens to start claiming their territory for the year. It won’t be long until the females give birth to a few pups, probably less than a half-dozen. And just a couple of months later, those pups will be on their own.

Hopefully, any that are born in Belmont will move on without seeing their shadows.