Moles and Molehills.

I don’t know if they have moles where you are but we don’t here in Australia. Although we have all heard of Moles and molehills, we had to go to South Africa to experience them first hand.

They are very shy critters and it is almost impossible to see them at all. The first time I saw one was in one place where we were staying and when I saw the earth move at the mouth of a molehill. So I started to dig after him. After about a yard (Metre) I came to a confluence of tunnels running off the one I was following. At this point I gave up but a local Xhosa guy who was doing some gardening work for us took up the chase. After a little pondering and listening he selected a tunnel and started digging and shortly after he caught the little fellow and we put it in a plastic washbasin to inspect. A little like a rat in appearance but shorter.

At that point not quite knowing what to do with it a neighbour’s boy came along and wanted to take it home. We were quite happy for him to do so, but I never did hear what his mum had to say about it!

The only other mole we saw was a dead one that the dogs caught. Even there they were always digging at the holes but that was the only one that we ever knew they caught.

Although we basically never saw a mole, we were always filling in and levelling off their handiwork.

One day I went out to my carrot patch and what was a healthy carrot top the day before was dried and shrivelled. When I touched it to examine it more closely it came up in my hand. The/a mole had eaten the root from below and just left the top in the hole!

We tried all the local methods of trying to chase them away. Filling the holes up with dirt, filling the holes up with water, Poking sharp steel rods in the ground, planting specific bulbs/tubers that they are not supposed to like (It was after I shoved one of these down a molehill that the dogs caught one and I always gave the tuber the credit rather than the dogs.) We also tried poison tablets down the holes too, but basically it was a losing battle. The best we could achieve was keeping them to the edges of the yard, as if no one else controlled theirs, than you always had a fresh batch ready to move it.

Again this is a bit like the problems and bad habits in our lives isn’t it. We can try all kinds of methods, but once they have a hold it is hard to get rid of them. Like a lot of our bad habits others might never actually see them but they will see and be troubled by the results, just like the problems of molehills all over the place. Likewise if you hang out with people who do not control theirs, it won’t be long before you will have them too.

So how do you live with molehills? You do your best to clean them all up, so that you only have to deal with the new holes. Then you do what you can to either eradicate or drive away the moles. This might involve a whole series of different methods from Dogs and cats, to poisonous tubers, to filling their holes with water or whatever. Then you just need to keep an eye on the follow up and re-act to every new hole and don’t let them get a foothold again.

What I said about moles I also think is appropriate to our bad habits. We have to have a major clean up effort, so that we can concentrate on the new outbreaks and not waste our time on empty holes. This clean up may involve many methods and even some outside help and/or advice. Then when we have achieved an acceptable result, we then have to maintain adequate follow up and not allow a fresh invasion or outbreak to take hold. What say you other Mole hunters out there? Walter