Lughnasa Lughnasa Moon
The whistle-pig incident continues to have reverberations. Her somewhat dormant 
hunting genes awakened Rigel has become more, well, dogged. Prior to the land-beaver and its remaining in place for almost 24 hours, Rigel had let our poor defenses contain her. Then, she squeezed under the chain link, taking her sister, Vega, with her. I wired it shut.
That afternoon I opened the front door on my way to the mailbox and there were Vega and Rigel, waiting to be let in from the front yard. Again with the wirecutters and my diminishing coil of wire. Again I found the new place and wired it shut. So. Good.
Then, late afternoon yesterday Vega could be seen standing near the driveway looking across at the neighbors. Where her much more adventuresome sister had gone to say hello. Once more along the fenceline. This time they had not slipped under the chain link, but pawed through a rotted branch, placed along this spot now long ago and gotten past its capacity to add security.
So, again with the wire and this time a cement block to plug up the hole, too. This was at 9
am today. At noon, after I fed them all lunch, I let everybody out. Gertie and Kepler, our two 75-pounders, came back in, as they always do. But the big girls did not. Uh-oh.
(Rigel on the left, Vega on the right, lounging after a sojourn in the neighborhood)
Once more outside I called for them. Nothing. There is about 600 feet or so of fence that runs along our property on the north side. It provides the most often used escape routes these days. Before I could get past the spot I sealed up this morning, Vega and Rigel came bounding along, tongues hanging out, wide smiles on their faces. On the other, wrong, side of the fence from where I stood.
They are now inside. Again, the coiled wire and the wire cutters will come out. Now you may think, why doesn’t he do something about this? Something preventative? I have. Rigel no longer goes over the fence because I ran an electric fence along the top. And, several years back I took badly warped 2×4’s and wired them to the bottom of the fence where I hadn’t wired in large branches from an earlier round of escapes by the whippets. This is around 2,500 feet of fence, roughly half a mile, and much of it formerly covered in dense underbrush.
(the Colorado fence I have in mind)
About five years ago I cut a path all around the fenceline and the dogs have used it, keeping it clear. At least now I can easily find and repair the breeches. This renewed hunting vigor will, I hope, pass soon.
Then, in Colorado, there will be bears and mountain lions. We’re gonna build a different kind of fence in Colorado.
