Moving out to the boondocks has it's advantages. It's peaceful. I like my space. More importantly, I have a noisy kid. I like that he can scream is arse off without someone calling the cops on us (that's for another blog). There are pro's and cons but for the most part it's perfect. When we first moved in the guy next store warned us that the worst thing that could happen out there is that the cows in a neighboring pasture jump the fence to our back yard. But not to worry, he would scare them off with his shotgun, ugh. That's really not an event one should fear on any given day is it? Well we have yet to have a cow jump the fence but the chickens like to pay us a visit from time to time. I have also found a new nemesis, moles!!
This summer they have tore up part of the fence line, around the foundation and new mounds pile up across the yard very day it seems. I have never seen one, only the mess they leave behind. I don't even know how many there are! "I'll show them!" I pronounce with great enthusiasm as I walk the land and stomp down every dirt mound and tunnel I can find. As you can imagine the mounds and tunnels reappear (and often times multiply). Last summer our resident critter catcher at work told me the only real way to get rid of them is to set a "trap". So in my mind I'm thinking "Oh, that's nice! I can trap them and relocate them!" As he continued with his explanation I realized that the trap is basically a mole guillotine. If you read the blog about the cat you probably know by now that I am not really all that crazy about killing animals. So I put it off. Fast forward to yesterday.
I spent the entire day working in the yard; weeding, mowing, raking, spraying etc. The mole holes were driving me crazy. They are so big that you can't mow near them. It is really out of control at this point and it literally started to piss me off. I had a caddyshack moment, "If I ever find those blankety blank moles I'm gonna …" I have some mulch around a tree in the front yard and every so often I rake it out. So I am raking with a garden rake and as I pull the rake towards me I uncover a rat! It was huge like a rat but it wasn't a rat it was…a MOLE! It was flopping around, I think I got it pretty good with the rake and it was trying to dig itself into the ground. I felt bad for a moment that I injured the thing until flashes of dirt mounds filled my head. WHACK! WHACK! WHACK! Before I knew it the rat-mole was motionless – killed by the crazy lady with the garden rake. Surprisingly, I did not feel bad at all. I even showed it to my husband when he got home. I continue with my landscaping and walked across the side yard for something and fell into a mole tunnel and about sprained my ankle. By this time it was getting dark out and figured I should start mowing the back. After a couple of rounds I see something waddling across the yard. "Is that a….." You betcha, another mole right there out in the open!! It was soon introduced to the front tire of the riding mower.
Today I am shopping for "traps"
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