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04/14/2008: "Spring Fever Casualty"
Sorry to have been so out of touch lately! Vernal grippe seized me a couple of weeks ago, and the resultant frenzy of gardening and related activities relegated this site to sad neglect. We do have a new gallery picture of the utaguchi-in-project shot that was posted recently... it's the second shot from the end on this page. [Gallery updated with still-newer photos, 3/16]

Today I slew a mole in our new community garden space, currently pictured near the end of the gallery page linked above. Yep, it was time to move to a place in the sun, so to speak: the Swamp Shack gets half-sun at best and is in a very cool microclimate, so it was time to secure a warmer, brighter space in which to coax heat-loving veggies such as tomatoes and peppers to their full potential. The new plot is just a couple miles up the road from the Shack-- so I'm looking forward to maintaining two fairly ambitious gardens this summer *urk*

Have you ever tried to trap a mole? Have I written about that before? I'm telling you, it's getting harder year by year to limit the redundancy: one of my worst fears is of aging into a benignly geezy character who tells the same stories over and over, to eye-rolling effect. But them moles is wily, by cracky!

Between accounts of the mole trapline and the two gardens, we hope to post occasional updates on flutes as well. More on that within 48 hours. --r.


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Replies: 2 Comments

Posted by Switch
Tuesday, April 15th

The photo of the garden plot is all well and good, but where's the shot of the dead mole?

Hmmm...How about starting a mole count?

Posted by rb
Wednesday, April 16th

A mole count is probably a good idea, although I hope that catching just two or three in the immediate area of the plot will mostly solve the problem for this season.

There are molehills all over the big field in which the garden is located, but moles maintain a particular territory: they don't just range randomly throughout the field at large.

Therefore, after moles in the immediate vicinity are removed it usually takes some time before others arrive to fill the vacuum. For instance, last year at the Swamp Shack I caught six moles in a short period in mid-to-late spring, and after that no sign of moles reappeared until just a week or two ago; that's in a much larger overall area than our 20x20 foot space at the community garden...

If necessary, I'll try to secure permission to trap moles in the garden plots surrounding ours, in order to maintain a wider DMZ (De-Moled Zone.)

As for pictures, moles aren't exactly the most photogenic beasts on earth... their fur is remarkably fine and soft though, and just yesterday I joked about skinnin' 'em and makin' trophy doilies outta their hides... believe it or not, I do have some experience with skinning and curing pelts from 'way back in the old Alaska days.

Unfortunately, far as I know nobody's ever designed a "live trap" for moles-- although someone, somewhere MUST have done so for research purposes, they're certainly not commercially available.

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