Since yesterday was April Fool's Day I shall use that as my excuse for not writing. I had great intentions and even a subject matter, then a wrench got thrown in the gears and my time schedule was all out of whack. Well, that's the best excuse I can come up with.
Being cooped up for a very long and cold winter has made for snarky attitudes so with the arrival of Spring like weather, its been good to get outside. I love to be out in the yard, doing yard work is like therapy and after this winter there is plenty to do.
I walked through the yard the other day and noticed that there was a war brewing just below the surface. There were mole runs everywhere, even under one of the raised patios. I checked the yard next door, that I take care of, and it too looked like a maze of moles on steroids.
Several years ago an older gentlemen told me the best time to catch moles was at 10 in the morning or 2 in the afternoon. I didn't think that could be possible, but he was right, moles work in their tunnels at those four hour time slots. Why they do this is beyond my scope of understanding, maybe they have some mole union that only allows them to work at this time.
I would arm myself with a long bladed knife and walk stealthily across the yard to my targeted mole hill. They are crafty little creatures and can pick up the slightest vibration, so stealth mole mode was a required trait to be a successful mole hunter. I did get a couple of moles this way, but moles do not follow the daylight savings time change, probably something in their union contract that forbids this, so it makes it difficult to remember that their 10 is my 11.
Another way to get rid of moles is to put hair in their runs. Human hair. According to America's Master Gardener, Jerry Baker, moles do not have a coagulating agent in their blood system, so if they get cut, they bleed to death. Sounds kind of mean and cruel but falling into the evil realms of the Mole King or breaking an ankle in a run sounds much worse to me.
Having a hairdresser daughter, there is never a shortage of cut hair. I told Ms. Sassafrass that we would declare war on the moles and she was all for it. The temperature was mild but the wind was blowing about 40 mph so we suited up in our armor of coats, mittens, stocking caps and earmuffs. We then armed ourselves with a bag of hair and two soup spoons and headed to the front line. Ms. Sassafrass' digging skills left a lot to be desired and after she flipped dirt in my eyes for the third time, we changed up our strategy. I would dig and place the hair in the hole, she would poke the hair in further and cover the hole back up. This proved to be most successful and after the second stuffing of the hair in a mole run, she filled the hole, took her soup spoon and patted the top three times and proclaimed, "Dat's what I call teamwork." She would proclaim this pseudo victory until the end of our mission.
After she went to school, I applied some grub killer to the yard. I don't like to use chemicals, but I wasn't taking any chances of the hair in the run not working. I won't tell Sassafrass, she can just relish in the belief that she got rid of the moles and her so tender young understanding of what team work is all about.
Today Ms. Sassafrass and I are going to plant strawberries, right in the middle of the kitchen floor. She has been on me to buy some so I told her we would just grow them instead. I found a most interesting idea online about growing plants in discarded 2 liter bottles and making said bottles into a tower. The bottles are ready along with a garbage bag of homemade potting soil and a package of 10 strawberry plants. This should prove to be interesting, along with giving me no excuses for not running the vacuum later on.
Whatever the outcome, I'm sure it will be a team effort.
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