Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Tough Year

We hear tell how you two-footed folks have been having a rough time topside what with the economy and all. Well, let me tell you; it's been no picnic around the Pdog town this year either. I give it up in early October and put in for early hibernation. Glad to see that ol' year gone.

First off, you know there's no prairie dogs in Kingfisher County. Well, not official-like, anyhow. Ol' Mr. Farmer K and my buddies, we've got us this agreement. He don't tell folks we're underfoot and, well, we just don't get underfoot. Keep the burrows at fair to middlin', don't get greedy for forage, that kinda thing. Stay outta his hair.

It works out good for us, too, don't you know? Most ol' boys got three or four Pdog Mamas keepin' 'em in line. Me, I just got the one and all the pups. But, you see, it's them pups that got us into hot water. We've had us some good size litters these last two years, got powerful crowded below ground. I'm digging and tunnelin' and doin' my dead level best to keep the hills few and far between and all the time it's gettin' more and more crowded. Them older pups growed like turnips in the rain and they's startin' to get downright snarly. It were pert obvious somethin' had to change.

Long about May or there'bouts, by your kinda reckonin', I get up one morning and, lo and behold, no pups. No big 'uns anyhow. It's dern quiet down below. Those boys had took off in the night and gone out to the edge of town and dug up ol' Farmer K's back pasture for a prairie dog town. Now there's several things wrong with that move. First off, it puts Farmer K in mind of us when we'd just as soon lay low. Second, those boys built in his canola field and he was gettin' mighty close to harvest. First year for him to try it, canola, and he was pretty touchy about interference.

We knew we was in trouble but figured that those boys'd come on back to town when the machinery started runnin' in that field. They know what machinery'll do to a Pdog. But we never figured on the deer. You see, deer seem to dearly love that canola, come in the night and chow down by the dark of the moon, but they hadn't made much headway in that field, hadn't got Farmer K's dander up none, though he sure didn't like 'em out there.

Those young pups came out curious one of them nights, wanted to see what those big bucks were up to. Derned if they weren't up to chasin' prairie dogs. I tell you it t'were awful, the slippin' and sliding, the squeals and snortin', the downright devastation. Looked like a war zone before it was over. Bent stalks, tore up dirt. You just wouldn't believe what a few Pdogs and a deer or two or three can do.

I thought we were done for fer sure. Farmer K was boilin', got out his tractor and plow and came after our town. Just tore it up bad and him a'swearin' all along. Nobody hurt but we was refugees. I can tell you it were a sad sight to see, all these little Pdogs with their belongings tied in bundles on their backs hitch-hikin' down the road. Didn't know where we was goin' and weren't sure where we was when we got there. Ain't about to tell you where we ended up. Life's just that way.

Anyhow, we's settled now and I 'spect them young 'uns'll never do nothin' that foolish again, but there's a whole new crop of pups comin' up behind them and, you know, it's just out there to be done over again. You can tell 'em the tale as many times as you please, but they always gotta learn it for theirselves.