Corkscrew Hole

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Mountain supervises at a field dig.

Beth K. and I had a lot of fun on Sunday running the dogs. At the first hedgerow Sailor slid into a pipe and opened up within 50 feet of the car. I had just gotton my pack off, and my machete out, when the groundhog bolted. Rock and Mountain caught it above ground at the edge of the field. I waded in for a quick and humane dispatch of a nice-sized groundhog -- a quick start to the day

The rest of the hedge was blank, and so was the next, so after a walking tour of this farm we headed off to another favorite spot. Again we were barely out of the car before the dogs pinged on another sette - this one in the middle of a hay field. Emma was very excited with a little vertical hole far too small for the dogs to enter. Sailor slid in to the larger pipe and stayed down a long time before she began to whine. She was clearly not on it, but something was very clearly there. The box said five feet, and we decided to dig down to see what the obstruction was.

At about four and half feet we broke through and found the groundhog had walled off the pipe. We poked around and found the rest of the pipe off to the side. Sailor went a bit farther and hit another wall -- a pattern we repeated several times as the pipe twisted around and down in a tight corkscrew. Four holes later, Sailor finally found the groundhog, but by this time she was exhausted and had a lot of dirt in her eyes.

We swapped out Sailor for 8-month old Emma who was wound up like a top. Yow -- what a dog this one is going to be! She gave that 'chuck "what for" for 20 minutes, and then we swapped in Mountain who bayed pretty well and got a nice chunk of groundhog butt and began to pull back hard. Mountain pulled and pulled while we opened up the hole a bit more. Mr. Groundhog had to be tiring at least a little.

With considerable difficulty we pulled Mountain out and put Rock in. This groundhog was going to have to have more muscle than two big dogs! Rock pulled and pulled, and eventually Mr. Groundhog slipped out of the pipe. I snared it by a back foot and pulled it out for dispatch. It was not all that large -- maybe 8 or 9 pounds -- but it sure did give us a run for the money! We backfilled in the holes -- we had moved a lot of dirt, and hoped the hole would "hair over" quickly. A very fun day, and a notable day for Emma who looks like she's going to be a very good looking little Super Star.