Digging on the Dogs

Doug P. came up from North Carolina with his three delightful kids and his fell terrier, Murphy, and we all went digging.

The dogs eventually found the first one of the day in the middle of a large multiflora rose break which I cut down to size with the machete. A little digging, and the first one of the day was accounted for.



The second groundhog was in a field sette, and we let that one (pictured at top) go after digging to it and snaring it out.

The third groundhog of the day was found in a sette I had popped into (and repaired) a few weeks earlier.

Initially we thought we had two groundhogs in two unconnected settes at this location, but it turned out to be the same fellow running some distance. The dogs bottled him and we dug to him and dispatched this one too, as it was in the stream bed where the farmer wants them out.

We were getting a bit hot by now (it is August!), but Mountain found again and was underground in the thick pokeweed. She was not baying, and though Doug and the kids and I looked for her, we could not find her. I eventually walked down the creek to the truck and drove it back up the field, confident the rumble of the truck would let her know the game was up, but Mountain had reappeared on her own with a small cut on her lip. She had clearly found, and no doubt had bolted it.

On the drive back up the farm to Doug's car, I spotted a big hole just inside the corn line and we stopped to take a look and decided to let Murphy work this one solo. She got in fine, but got stuck at a narrow spot which seemed to give the groundhog the time it needed to dig in. We cleared out some extra dirt and swapped in Mountain, and she eventually found it, but by now the day was getting a bit long. Since Doug had a 6 hour drive down to Kitty Hawk, we decided to call it a day and gave this last fellow best; there will always be another dig.

All the pictures, above, are by Kenzie, by the way -- a lovely girl with a gift for photography. All three kids are bug-light bright, so I think the future is in good hands so long as we can keep the world together to pass it on to the next generation.
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