Badgers are so cute. Also terrifying in their adult form. They are closely related to wolverines, after all! One summer I was biking along the Wobegon Trail just east of Sauk Centre, where a tall, grassy bank rises up to some fields, and something about the bank had changed. I couldn’t put my finger on what it was until suddenly a badger popped up out of the hole on top of the embankment. That’s when I realized a whole section of hillside had been terraformed by badgers–mounds of dirt everywhere. The badger stared at me, and I stared at him, thankful for the the length of the embankment and ditch between us, but still ready to take off on my bike at the blink of an eye. Finally he popped back down the hole, and I continued on my way. Just as quickly as the badger had moved in, he moved on, and it has returned to an innocuous grassy bank. Badgers may be hard on farmland, but more effective rodent and varmint hunters you’ll be hard-pressed to find!

The post Badger Progression first appeared on Rachael Koppendrayer.