by John McKnight
You have to give moles a lot of credit. They aren’t exactly cute, and they don’t appear to be too smart, but they sure do get a lot of work done. And that’s the problem. The more they work the more you have to work. We sold our house last October and it was with no small sense of relief. I’d fought the moles in that yard for almost 15 years. How many generations of moles is that? It was nearly a generation of me. They won, I was moving on.
Over the years I tried a lot of different things. Stomping on the mound of dirt over the tiny hole below in my heavy boots seemed to work the best. Letting the dandelions grow so they’d strangle themselves on the roots didn’t. Gene who owned the place before me left some kind of shotgun shell detonating device behind, but I was never quite brave enough to use it. Maybe if it was a little less rusty. I wasn’t ready to risk my life against a mole, and since they were still there when he sold the place to me I figured it must not have worked anyway. Finally I just gave in to mowing the dirt down and waiting for the grass to grow.
We had looked at the new house several times over the course of the summer and one of the things that stood out was the well kept landscaping and the nice flat lawn. Sure there were dandelions, dandelions come with every property. But there was no sign that there was now or ever had been a mole, and moving onto a piece of land without any moles is truly a blessing.
Then it happened. Standing in my new kitchen drinking my morning coffee and gazing at my perfect new lawn (except for the dandelions), I saw a terrible thing. A mole hole, and they seemed to multiply before my very eyes. Within days they had nearly covered one little enclosed section of lawn. Then they spread in an arc completely around the back patio in the back yard. Many right up into the flower beds against the concrete spilling mud onto the surface. One had the audacity to dig right up against my new little shop leaving a pile of mud on my doorstep.
Yes mud, this started three weeks after we moved in last November and it was decidedly wet. Angry I headed out into the rain to go stomping. I had to wear rubber boots to stomp on the mud, but it just came up in a large muddy clump on the bottom of my sole. That defeats the purpose of pounding the dirt so hard back into their tiny little dirt hole that it plugs their tunnel but good and they won’t bother trying to dig through it again. And it just made me angrier.
And I was convinced these weren’t new moles, but the same damn moles I’d been fighting for years. How? Obviously they love me. The little beggars hitched a ride. Likely they jumped onto some last minute thing I had to load up and move then jumped off again when I unloaded. That or they climbed up onto the spare tire of my rig and had a nice laugh on the way in. Thanksgiving came with all the parents, lots of talk about moles and lots of advice. But I was ready for explosives.
Then a small voice said, “Live with the moles.” We had a friend over and she has a tender heart for the environment and all the creatures that inhabit it. I was a little agitated as I told her to look out the window, and pointed out that a mud pie would not be the best place for our kids to play together. Then I explained that the moles had to go, and there’d likely be casualties.
The next day I drove into town to explore my options. My in-laws had suggested a mole trap, but I wasn’t going to wait for them to come to me, I was going after the moles. Besides, where do you take a trapped mole? I had one idea but that just didn’t seem right. So working down the aisles I found the mole section. I was surprised at the number of ways there are to kill or otherwise eradicate a mole. Fifteen years. Then something caught my eye. Spikes that emit a noise that bothers the moles, so they just leave I liked that, little work and no mole. Better yet, they had solar powered units that you could put in the yard and scare moles forever.
No, my bloodlust wasn’t in any way satisfied, but after pounding two holes for the spikes my moles are gone. And nobody got hurt. My Earth Day solution, I let the moles live, and now they’re living somewhere else. You have to admire how hard they work, I’m sure my neighbors do.
John McKnight has been exploring Whatcom and Skagit counties for over 25 years. He can be e-mailed at john@foothillsgazette.com.
