This was a couple of days ago. I've been busy. Sue me.
Grace and I were out for our morning walk. So far so good. Nine times out of ten the morning walk goes east along Old Harding Pike, taking in the condo communities along the right side. Once at the other end, at Hicks Road, we either cross over to where the power lines cut through the woods to Iroquois Apartments, or to the "Doggie Doos" pet grooming place. This particular morning she took us to the latter. There is a field on the right side and a six foot high ridge on the left. We went left. As we approached the slope, she did her foxy jump and dove nose first into the dirt and ivy. With her usual manic fervor, she clawed, bit and dug her way down into the obviously molehill-riddled ground, poking that busy nose into every chasm she dug and scratching an area a yard square in search of the elusive moles. This is routine behavior, not worthy of a blog post. It's what happened next that made me laugh. She was eyebrows deep into a hole on the right side of the excavation, when on the left side several moles suddenly broke cover and ran, searching for safer ground. From my perspective it looked like a cartoon or a Marx Brothers routine. A mole would pop out of this hole, run six or seven inches, then dive down another hole. Two or three at a time would do this, ongoing for several minutes, while Grace, completely oblivious, continued to dig and scratch and poke that nose into the holes. I don't know if it was one of the ones I'd seen that unluckily ran into a hole that led to Grace's mouth, or a different one, but on this occasion she did that signature slow, careful backing out of the hole with a struggling mole in her mouth. She played cat and mouse (dog and mole just doesn't sound right) until the mole was unable to run any more, and on we went with our walk.
