Pesky moles don’t get the better of Kent Reporter columnist: Local Speak

Attack of the Moles!

I wish this was some bad movie title, but it isn’t. My backyard is looking like an adolescent boy’s face, with mini craters popping up everywhere.

Along with my Labrador’s unwillingness to use indoor plumbing, and her penchant for building her very own poopapalooza tent city, our lawn has turned into a minefield. I would like to immediately move, but my wife has decided against it.

I can’t get rid of my dog; she is just doing her job which is to do her business outside. And business is good. So I started to focus my anger at the moles.Little burrowing mammals that have no qualms about ripping up my sweet green grass in order to well, do what moles do. I looked it up. Moles feed on earthworms and other creepy crawly bugs and take out certain varieties of pests that are bad for the flowers.

This I don’t care about. They do much more damage than they prevent and it’s up to me {the man of the house} to stop them. First step, I heard garlic down their hole would drive them out. I tried fresh, minced and whole garlic before I stopped short of serving them nice Chianti with dinner. It worked for about a week before they came back.

Mole bait didn’t work either. They simply dug new holes, making this a game of “whack a mole.”

I tried fans that create a noise in their tunnels. Now along with feeding them garlic I am creating a nice breeze for them as well. I remember when I worked for a golf course in the 1980s. We used to sit by their hole and wait for them to pop their little heads out before giving them a 12 gauge “say hello to my little friend.” Since I have an aversion to go to jail for any reason I decided that discharging a firearm in the city would not be practical.

I am the man of the house .There is no way this little lawn wrecker is going to get the best of me. So I did what every man should do in this tense situation. Call a professional. When the mole guy came out to set the traps I was swift enough to notice it wasn’t a guy but a 24 year old woman. She set the traps and came back in two weeks to see the results .Two little moles about 6 inches long{I didn’t get a real close look} were in various stages of rigor mortis. She asked what I wanted to do with them. Mounting them on my wall is out; I thought .So I did the only thing I thought was appropriate. I threw them over my fence into the neighbors’ yard. Why should I have all the fun around here?