Badger Digging With JCB's .....

I wonder what David Harcombe would make of this, eh? Quite a strange experience ~ well; unique, in my experience .....

I was out and about, the other day, and came across a farmer having some work done on his land. Full sized JCB was scraping out the ditches (Drains, as they're called here) and generally tidying things up. This sort of thing goes on all the time round here.

Anyway, I thought I might mosey on down there and have a chat. I wasn't carrying a gun as I'd only gone out for a recce. Checking for exactly this sort of thing. I need to keep my finger on the pulse of the local ground, obviously.

And there's 'Pad' (we'll call him that, to protect his identity) directing Noel what to do with the shovel of the big digger. Noel really Is Noel. But then, so are about a third of the men in the whole of Co. Leitrim. And half of them can operate a JCB.

Anyway, barely have I got there and began exchanging the usual pleasantries with Pad ~ who I could see had been busy with the chain saw ~ than badgers came into the conversation. And, with mention of them, Pad said something like, " To fokkers! " and gestured toward a freshly created tree stump not six foot from us.

Suddenly, it became 'Interesting'! Almost instantly, my on board GPS plotted where I was standing, in relation to how I remembered things used to look around here, before man and machines started 'Tidying Up'. That ditch there? This one here? That 'Tree' ....?

That's the fucker that always stood at the junction of those two ditches. The one in the corner. Where I've always approached from the field on the other side of this ditch and peered in, under the brush beneath the tree. At the badger sett entrance beneath the tree roots!

Holy Fucking Shit! And now the tree's a fucking stump. The ditch is a ..... well; A fucking site deeper and wider! The badger sett? I jumped into the huge pit the digger had just dug.
Yeppers. Bending low, I could still make out what had been the entrance hole, beneath the tree. Only, now it sort of entered straight into a fucking great hole I was standing in!

I climbed back out and was 'excitedly' informing Pad that 'we' were actually digging straight into an active fucking badger sett just as Pad called, " That old stump, Noel ..... " And with one almighty demonstration of its awesome power, the JCB tore the entire stump out by its roots. Flicking up a wad of old bedding as it did so. Bedding which the badgers had recently dragged from their nest and left outside the hole. Hidden from my view.

" So; Ye reckon de fokkers'r in der? " Asks Pad. I'm trying not to lose the plot completely here. I mean; Here I am. I've got a Hi Viz vest on. " Pest Control " emblazoned across the back of it. And I'm in league with two nut cases wilfully tearing an obviously active fucking badger sett apart with a mechanical digger! This sort of shit's even Illegal over here. And we're in plain view of the road!

I've taken about two seconds to absorb Pad's question and glance over the devastation before me. " There! " I said. Holding my hand out, palm down, toward a spot of untouched field not six foot away. " I reckon they'll have their nest in there! "

And, whilst he never could have heard my words. It seems like Noel the Digger Operator took my gesture as a signal to Dig There! And dig he fucking did too! With one awe inspiring, arsehole clenching, fluid movement, that big shovel just swung round like a Sparrow hawk. It bit deep into the field, exactly where I'd 'indicated' and came up full of brown earth.

And bedding! Shit loads of bedding! 'Might there be a whole fucking Badger in amongst that lot?' amounts of bedding! My eyeballs are bulging out of my head. The tortoises head is bulging out of my behind. What The Fuck am I being implicated in here?

I'm imagining a badger making a bolt for it at any moment. Noel deftly squashing it with a practised swing and drop of that shovel. Just as Pad shouts, " Noel! Der goes anudder wun! " Whirrrr! Swing. Splat!

Fuck this! I was out of there! These guys were absolutely cuckoo!


I met my neighbour, Pat, on the way home. I'd calmed down enough by then to mention how I could use that JCB down at my place. Pat said we'd have to get a tractor tired digger down the road to here. Noel's one has caterpillar tracks. " He'd dig up all the road. " Said Pat. And I'm thinking; " Ye don't wanna Know what that mad fucker'll dig up! "