Exposing my hole
A very long time ago I wrote about a strange phenomenon here at the Manor.
I refer of course to the appearance of holes which crop up for no apparent reason in random places.
Yesterday evening I was wandering across the field when I spotted a new one. Once again it defies all logic. Where the fuck did it come from?
The hole with my pipe for scale.
There are a few things to note here. It is around two inches in diameter and is nearly circular. It is around ten or eleven inches deep and seems to widen a bit near the bottom. It is nearly big enough to squeeze my hand into and its sides are rough so it isn’t an old pipe to plug in a clothes line [there is one of those in the garden but I’m damned if I can find it!].
The strangest thing though is that there is no soil around it as there would be if something had dug it out. In fact I had a bit of trouble finding it again this morning, and had to pull back the grass to expose it.
Is it a sink hole? Is the entire field about to suddenly disappear into an underground cavern? Have I inadvertently found an old mine shaft? Did someone creep in and plant a no-smoking notice on my lawn and then have second thoughts?
Life is full of mysteries.
Perhaps it’s for Donald Trump’s latest golf course. Or just one of many created for long distance golf. https://youtu.be/oD-LvABxMsY
I shall name it The 19th. However if a golf ball goes into it, it stays down there as there’s no way of retrieving it.
Looks suspiciously like rats, which is the same thing as Tobacco Control if you think about it.
Toads like holes this size. (Real toads not sausages, they prefer yorkshire pudding to hide in.) The depth means they stay cool in summer and moist and slightly bigger at the deep end just for comfort. Seen one in the same size/dimensions at the local stately pile. Perhaps its an aristocracy thing toads do.Is there something you aren’t telling us?
I’m worried about your pipe. It looked suspiciously like something involved in a night I spent with some medical students in the 70’s. I have struggled to forget it ever since. Mind you, it gave me some valuable insight into the medical profession. Nowadays I put myself in their clutches as little as possible. As for the hole, if you were to pump novichok into it, I bet you would kill a lot of badgers. Unless it was a meteorite?
A lot of people worry about my pipe and quite a few strangers in the coffee shop have commented on it [and were somewhat disappointed that I was merely smoking baccy.
That pipe is one of Elie’s specials. Designed by himself and hand made it has a lovely heat-sink and filtration system so it gives a lovely clean, cool, dry smoke. I have bought a few pipes off him and frankly wouldn’t buy them anywhere else.
Correct me if I am wrong [which I never am] then wouldn’t either a toad or a rat left some detritus around the hole? Unless of course they secreted the soil in their trousers and deposited it around the garden?
The cat found it this afternoon [which would imply that it’s fairly new – she misses nothing]. She stuck her nose down, then poked a paw in as far as it would go and then lost interest.
Anyhow I’ll try blowing some pipe smoke into it to kill all the Tobacco Controllers stone dead. One slightest whiff will do it.
We have had some very similar ones in the garden, they appear overnight. We were told foxes or badgers were the most likely suspects.
Bloody leprechauns again!
I’m pretty sure that’s rats. I have these in my garden and I know that Rat City is underneath. It doesn’t bother me and in the 20 years I’ve been here I’ve only ever seen 2 live rats. Next door, which gets the holes, too, is at permanent war with Rat City and gets the rat-man in every year to lay poison traps. This results in a few corpses and then life continues as usual. You cannot win against rats.
Are you sure it’s not just from your walking stick?
Rats toads, badgers, leprechauns, foxes? Any one of them would have left at least a little soil around the pit as they dug it? The hole looks more like it was dug by something underneath and heading for the surface. Or else a walking stick poking it? But then I don’t use a walking stick and it wouldn’t be two inches in diameter if I did.
Aah could be a ‘late arrival’ toad or maybe a young mole who hasn’t got the mole hilling knack just yet. Not rats. Rats are way too clever to wander around in a field digging a hole on spec and getting bored in full view of every flying/walking thing that eats them.
Maybe it’s snakes – so St. Patrick was bullshitting all along.
Simple, just some new residents at the manor… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LocoiW5gXzk 🙂 Hope all well there GD.