An Empty Bag
It was a Sunday morning when all the bugging my Dad about ferreting eventually paid off. It was a cloudy day in November it looked like it could pour down with rain any minute. I woke my dad with a nice strong cup of coffee then I gave the estate gamekeeper a ring to see if we could go ferreting. I was starting to get a bit anxious.
I only had one ferret he was a five-month-old Albino hob called Frodo, he like us had never been ferreting before but they say it comes natural to them. All I had to carry him in was a cat carrying box my mum used for the cats. I put some food in his carrying box he was looking very lively. I only had ten nets, which I carried in my pocket.
The first bury had about eleven holes. It was in a field known as the Back Down in which there were many buries. The first bury was on a hill, the grass around the bury was very short and there were droppings all over the place, there was hardly any bushes around and no rabbits above ground. I did not know how to set nets so I probably didn't set half of them right. My Dad didn't help me set the nets he said he was getting the ferret ready. I think we were being too noisy. The soil was hard so I had trouble getting the pegs in.
My Dad got impatient and put the ferret into the bury before I had set the last net. Unluckily the rabbit bolted out of the only hole I had not netted, I was surprised how fast the rabbit bolted. The ferret stayed down for quite a while before appearing we re-entered him in hope that there were more rabbits down in the bury.
We waited for about a quarter of an hour when we heard scuttling in one of the top holes, the ferret was playing and rubbing his scent as we went near he shot down again, he didn't have a locator collar so we could not dig him out which was a bit of a pain
When we did finally catch him we did not hesitate to move to another bury this bury was on level ground it was a very open bury it had about five holes. I netted the holes and put the ferret down into one of the holes we waited for about ten minutes.
I went looking around looking down holes. Suddenly I heard a squeaking. I ran over to where the noise was coming from I pulled up a tuft of grass which turned out to be a sod which someone had stuffed in a pop-hole. I looked down the hole and saw my ferret wrestling with a rabbit. I tried to grab the rabbit but my arm wasn't long enough, so I called my Dad over but the ferret and the rabbit had gone.
When the ferret did eventually appear we moved to another bury, the next bury had bits of brick and corrugated tin scattered around there were a couple of bottles poking out of the ground, the bury was on a hill it looked like it had been dug before.
When the ferret came out he was very tired I didn't want to stop ferreting but dad said the ferret was very tired. I think he just wanted his Sunday lunch. We collected all the nets up then we started to walk back to the car the rain started to pour down on the way home and the ferret fell asleep on my lap.
By Devon (10)