Man vs. Mole

As I reported last week, my garden has been attacked by a mole, and I am doing everything I can to eliminate him. (It may be a her, but for the sake of convenience…) The rules of engagement are simple: Mr. Mole must die or move elsewhere before he destroys the garden.

Some of you may think that’s harsh and cruel. You may have a milk moustache. You may believe in the harmony of man and nature, the symbiosis of all living organisms, the circle of life and hakuna matata. You may think that man and mole should live together in unity and peace. Not me. That crap sounds great when you’re sitting on your prayer rug in a lotus position chanting some mantra for world peace, but not when you’re trying to save your garden.

I have been doing a lot of research into moles. It’s called getting to know your enemy. A mole can destroy an entire vegetable garden in a short time. They like to eat grubs, bugs and earthworms with the occasional bulb or tuber thrown in. As they burrow through the soil in search of their dinner they destroy the roots of plants and vegetables.

They have a high metabolism and a ravenous appetite. Much like Rosie O’Donnell, a mole must eat close to its weight in food a day to survive. The average mole weighs 3 to 6 ounces. I have no idea what the average grub or earthworm weighs, but I’m pretty certain it takes a lot of them to total 3 to 6 ounces. That may account for the prodigious amount of tunneling that a mole can do in one day.

The mole in my garden seems particularly energetic when it comes to tunneling. He can tunnel more than 200 feet a day in search of food and that number only includes the tunnels I can detect. He’s a crafty little bugger. He prefers the soft soil of the rows to the harder soil of the pathways between them. He will tunnel straight up one row, cross over, and tunnel back down the next one. It’s like my garden is a mole supermarket.

The bottom line is that it is not possible for man and mole to live together in harmony in a garden. Mr. Mole does not have a COEXIST sticker on the back of his Prius. His reads: Go for the grubs and let nothing else matter. That makes my choice simple. I can have either a garden or a cafeteria for Mr. Mole, but not both. I choose the garden and that means Mr. Mole must go…dead or alive.

From what I have read, it’s almost a fair fight. It appears that getting rid of a mole is as hard as getting rid of dead Democratic voters on the Cook County voting rolls. If you search the internet you will find any number of suggestions on how to get rid of moles. Every fifth website tells you that none of the methods work.

One website suggests the shovel and hammer method for getting rid of a mole. The basic idea is to take two shovels and a hammer and stand very quietly in likely mole territory until a mole burrows by at which point you use one shovel to stop its forward progress, the second shovel to keep it from retreating and the hammer to bludgeon it to death. Seriously?

Who has the time or the patience to wait for a mole to stroll by? What if you have a large garden like mine? I could spend nine hours waiting for Mr. Mole at the north end of the garden while he’s destroying the south end. Whoever thought up this method obviously watched too many Road Runner cartoons as a child. I’m surprised he or she didn’t specify that the shovels and hammers have to be purchased from the Acme Shovel and Hammer Company. I’m convinced the website is a Sierra Club ruse to ensure that not one mole is ever harmed.

Almost every method of getting rid of moles requires you to determine which of the mole’s many tunnels are active, i.e., the ones that the mole still uses, and then set traps or poisons along the mole’s intended path. That may be possible if you have the tracking skills of an Apache warrior or are clairvoyant. But I’m not Tonto or the Amazing Kreskin. I have trouble finding the bread aisle in a supermarket.

One kit comes with tiny red flags on little sticks that you are supposed to push into the top of a tunnel. If the stick has moved when you come back the next day that means the mole is still using the tunnel. That sounds to me like an idea straight out of the Elmer Fudd handbook. I sure hope the U.S. Border Patrol uses more sophisticated methods on the Mexican border.

I bought a mole trap. It’s basically an upside down punji stick. You set it, place it over an active tunnel, and when a mole triggers it a long and very sharp steel spike plunges into the tunnel impaling it. To be honest, I’m a little frightened to set the trap, much less place it in the garden. I have visions of the thing flying into the air like a bouncing Betty mine and imbedding itself in my leg when it’s triggered. I’ve already been to the emergency room after sticking my finger into a running lawnmower. If I showed up again with a mole trap stuck in my leg, I’m pretty sure I’d be voted dumb ass of the year in Fannin County.

So the battle of man versus mole continues. So far Mr. Mole is winning. Remind me again about the advantages of having opposing thumbs, a large brain and the ability to communicate and have abstract thoughts. I need a little pep talk right now.