There is a war going on just outside my dining room window. It started when the snow was still covering the frozen lawn, extra-large mole hills were popping up through the snow. Mike sets several traps and dispatched that mole fairly quickly.
Since the catch we had seen no more activity in this area that is only about two pickup spaces big, until about a month ago. Smaller mounds started popping up. Mike set a trap, but the sneaky critter would dig on the opposite side of the garden when the spring-loaded device was in the ground, or plug the trap with grass and dirt so that it could not snap.
After about a week without catching Mr. Mole, Mike placed a second trap. New mounds showed up on either side of the traps and in between them too. The second week passed without success.
Traps were moved and re-set as the mounds appeared. It’s like a slow motion game of ‘Whack-A-Mole’ from the arcade. The underground thug has been dangerously close to the newly planted lilac, daphne and lavender bushes that were planted this spring. The third week came and went and still the little bugger has been digging.
Jumping into the game, I jammed the garden hose down the offending hole at the highest point in the yard and let it run for about 10 minutes, I was just hoping that I could flush the little sucker out and I paced around the lawn thinking he would come out coughing. No sign of the mole appeared. Three days went by without a single mound, the day I said out loud that I thought that I had drowned him, he started mounding hills all over the grass. Apparently, I had only watered enough to bring all the worms to him.
Mike has now set a third trap.
It’s all a matter of time before Mr. Mole will be gone. Until then, the war continues.
Schmidlin Angus Farm 