Monday, June 20, 2005

Water Polo with Groundhogs



The dogs bolted a groundhog into a pond on Sunday. Mountain and Sailor and Millie followed the groundhog right into the water, and in short order the groundhog was drowned, which apparently was a good thing. From what I gather, groundhogs in water - like raccoons -- can be very serious critters, as their teeth are right at eye, throat and nose level.

This picture, above, was taken on the fly, but the nose of the groundhog can be seen at the far right, next to Sailor (the white dog is Mountain). This groundhog bobbed to the surface only three times before disappearing underwater for good. At the end of the day, we checked out the pond and the groundhog was floating about 12 feet off the bank, head down and butt up.

By the way all the dogs went swimming and all the collars worked afterwards -- proof that taping well works!

A total of five groundhogs were accounted for this day, which was about 25 degrees cooler than last weekend.

The picture below was taken inside a hedgerow. This sette went under a tree stump. Notice the thick vines at back -- I do not know how people can operate in American hedgerows without a machete to hack away wild grape, mutliflora rose, take out small trees, etc. A saw is a fine tool for roots, but a machete can clear an area for digging pretty quickly. It's a dangerous tool, however -- always cut away from yourself.


No comments: