"No matter how hard I stomp they continue to loll and dig and play. They knock into the underground gas furnace, and love the big noise." - The author depicts the woodchucks as playful children.
"I'm thinking of a sentence, businesslike, a thing I can write down, when I look up from my woodchuck. A young buck deer is watching me." - The short, set-off sentence signals something unexpected has happened.
"...he looks straight at me, the apple round and whole in his teeth, like the apple in the mouth of a suckling pig." - The buck looks like a roasted pig; he's assessing the situation.
“...she is watching me, her eyes deep-water mussels, endless and grave, purple-block" - The language used to describe the doe gives her a sense of gravitas.