Thursday, May 28, 2015

I saw the most remarkable thing this afternoon. My lawn is riddled with moles and mole tunnels. They are impossible to get rid of and so I'm tolerating them until I seriously begin gardening out there. Anyway. I was walking toward the front door and noticed two full grown moles THROWING DOWN.  They were rolling and tumbling and biting each other, flipping the dirt around. They have these flipper front paws? hands? and they're BLIND. I moved one of them to the other side of the yard and they --poof---disappeared into the ground.

They have glossy black fur and stubby tails. They're kinda cute except for the general mayhem and my yard is wee small. I looked up 'getting rid of moles' on Google and one solution involved two shovels and a sledge hammer (ouch). Or mouse traps and salami. Nope, not that one either.

Anyway, sorry Hugo missed all the fun. He's good at rats but moles, not his forte.

It's a regular wild kingdom around here.

6 comments:

Ms. Moon said...

It must be mole mating season. That is generally why males of all species fight.
That is some serious mole-age. I have no idea what you would do. Get a terrier?

Jo said...

Aw, moles! They are my son's absolute favourite. He developed a random mole affection early on, and he's be so sad to hear of any intended mole-icide. I'm kind of jealous of your witnessing of the mole fight. I'd rather see that than have a flat lawn :)

Sabine said...

I stayed in a place in the hills one summer where the mole solution consisted of half a dozen waist high metal sticks driven into the lawn and to each stick, a flat metal plate about the size of a saucepan was attached with a loose chain. Every bit of air movement made the plates bang onto the metal sticks and the guy who owned the place would go out every so often to bang on the sticks with his shovel. No more moles but a hell of a racket.

And the you read "The wind in the willows" . . .

Birdie said...

I guess that is where they came up with the game, whack-a-mole. Poor little things. They are quite cute if you don't have to have them in your yard. Maybe you can ask them to move.

Elizabeth said...

I get moles and gophers mixed up, and I also think of that stupid movie from years ago with Bill Murray and Rodney Dangerfield. Weren't they obsessed with the moles or gophers on a golf course?

Betsy MacWhinney said...

I think you kind of glossed over, "I moved one of them". Barehandedly broke up a mole fight? Whoa!
xoxo