THE HOLE IN THE GARDEN... (WHEN TWO BADGERS CAME TO MY NECK OF THE WOODS...)

 The Hole In The Garden…

A hole seemed to have been hacked from the soil

In my garden near a neighbour’s fence.

Laboriously I dug the spoil back in again

And covered it over with a damaged wicker surround.

But within days another hole appeared, 

Likely from beneath the neighbour’s side 

Of a wooden panel and I stood, agape, in suspense.

No soil though had been scraped by an animal’s toil

On my neighbour’s side of the fence,

Thus I puzzled at the anomaly with disdain.

This time however I left the cavity as found

But to reconnoitre a passage, I disappeared

Beyond my back fence in a passage outside:

But of any kind of digging there was no evidence.

The only explanation I could sensibly suggest

Was that the hole was integral to a badgers’ sett

But proof would be needed of those welcome guests,

Uninvited certainly but I would not regret

Brocks being the visitors and so I formulated a ruse. 

After dusk, in drizzle but not too late

I dropped a few peanuts near the hole, loose

On the ground and retired to the house to await

Any detection of wildlife, albeit unlikely. 

And then through the mirky fading light, 

Two badgers emerged, their movements sprightly

And began to feed in my garden into the night…  

Pete Ray

25th July 2022

Unbelievably, after the original badger dream I once had, then acquiring my hand-puppet badger, The Bodging, then seeing, watching and feeding badgers in Temple Balsall for over 15 months, finally, two badgers have visited me…

I am still shocked and in awe of what happened last night, 24th July 2022…

Unforgettable…

Holes had appeared before but I had simply assumed that foxes had dug under the rear fence from below in a narrow right-of-way, some ten feet below the level of the garden. 

When I walked round the block to check, there were no signs of any digging whatsoever, which is when my mind turned to badgers.

I had filled in the first hole which had appeared in the garden itself and covered it with a section of a broken wicker waste bin surround but then hole number two appeared…

I did not fill in the second hole and sure enough a sett entrance has now been discovered…