a slathering maw

"There's nothing I like better than staring down the slathering maw of nature."
--tony bordain from the travel channel

I found myself carefully trying to extract myself from the thorny vine filled woods I generally avoid. Yet one dog had found a critter hole, large enough to be fit only for a racoon, and well protected by the aforementioned thorny vines. He put his head halfway down the hole, stepped back and barked. He would not leave until the critter emerged. And so I find myself in this predicament: creeping under barbed wire fencing left over from the old homestead, fallen cedar branches, poison ivy, intrepid vines, all tearing skin and clothing, to retrieve the obsessed canine. Pulling both dogs, neither of whom seemed impressed with my skills, I crept back through the slathering maw of woods gone wild.