A Fast Day on a New Farm

Mountain in a pipe working a raccoon. There were two down there -- a smallish female and a mid-sized male. Mountain came out without a scratch.


On Sunday I stopped at a new farm just up the road from where I normally dig. The owner of this place called me last week and said she needed someone to knock down her groundhog population as they were chewing up her stream bank. No problem -- only too happy to help.

Coming on to this place I was first struck by what a nice house it is -- a two-story brick edifice built in the 1920s I would guess, and kept in excellent shape from the look of things. There was a pretty garden on the side of the house and a number of large barns and outbuildings. Everything looked to be ship shape -- especially the blue Farmall tractor in the shed next to where I parked. I liked the look of this place right away, and even before I had finished taping the collar, I envied the owner.

I collared up Mountain, and shouldered up the tools. Within 5 minutes Mountain had found along the stream bank. The owner of this farm did not lie; she has a lot of groundhogs. The wide swale of uncut grass on either side of the stream seemed to be loaded with holes, and the ground was soft and the soil excellent all the way down. If I was a groundhog, I would want to live here too.



This one bolted up a tree and whistled and whistled and whistled.

Mountain had no trouble finding critters on this farm. I was just finishing repairing one sette, when Mountain was in another and already baying. In the end, we knocked out two groundhogs, bolted another up a tree, and dug on two raccoons found together, all in the space of just two hours and 45 minutes.

By the time I had repaired the raccoon sette, and gathered the tools it was 12:15, and I decided to call it a day while Mountain will still in fine fettle. In truth, five holes dug solo is about my limit these days. It was a good call on my part -- rain started to fall when I was only 10 miles down the highway. We'll be back next weekend, for sure.




A peep out from one of the raccoons. This was one slow to bolt - most are out and gone before I can get a picture.

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