– Barrie Hedge

A group of dog owners who meet regularly at Rye Town Park got together on Sunday, April 14 for the second annual effort to fill in all the holes their dogs had dug.

With rakes, shovels and a big bag of grass seed, they congregated at their usual meeting place, atop a hill in the center of the park. As they surveyed what their canine friends had wrought, the participants realized they were doing a real service; some of the holes were sizable and really quite dangerous if someone accidentally stepped in one.

Rye Town Park Director Russ Gold and his team arranged to get two yards of top-soil along with a tractor to bring it up to the hilltop where the work would take place, which made the task that much easier.

The volunteers munched the donuts and sipped the coffee that had been promised. It turned out to be a sufficient incentive to draw roughly a dozen people who showed up.

Since this was, in fact, the second annual hole filling, most of the people already had experience and got right to work. All the holes that could be found were filled. Then, areas that had become hard packed were turned over and raked. Then a fairly large area was covered with fresh top-soil, and only then was the grass seed spread.

The whole area was then taped off to keep out the inevitable loiterers. With the recent days of wet weather, the seed should produce a nice grassy cover just in time for the summer season.