Moxie is back in the field. She went to ground when we were just a short way down the hedge. She bayed a few barks and then fell silent, but she did not come out. I downed the tools, staked out Misto sufficient distance to get a single dog reading from the box, and dropped a hole onto Moxie. She was locked on, which was why she was quiet; you cannot bark if you have a mouth full of fur. I eyeballed back from the hole, put in the shovel, and hit the groundhog on the second turn of the earth. It was snared and dispatched in short order. This one tipped a wee bit over 14 pounds, and was set out to be recycled back to the local fox which the farmer feeds and values for mice-control. Groundhogs are another matter; the farmer was bombing their dens earlier in the week as they had not seen me for a bit. The notion that groundhogs are not an agricultural pest is a fancy bit of thinking from armchair theorists who have never driven a tractor, tightened a fence, or shot stock that has broken a hock in a hole.
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