How I Fought Moles On My Site

2024 Author: Sebastian Paterson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:47

I have already told in our magazine about how summer residents from a nearby street in our village got rid of moles by pumping water into their underground passages. I also casually mentioned that the nearest molehills (heaps of earth on the surface) are a hundred meters from my site. And then it happened …

On an August morning last year, when I opened the gate leading to the pond in the meadow, I found three fresh molehills there. One was outside, half a meter from the gate, the second was directly under the gate, and the third was at a huge boulder behind the house. With a high degree of probability, it could be assumed that the mole, having penetrated the site, reached the boulder, rested on it and stopped, since I did not find any other molehills. Throwing all business, immediately began action against the intruder. From the well behind the house he ran a hose to the first three mole holes. He carefully cleared the passages and began to pump water into them. I completed the first and third in three minutes. But it took almost eleven minutes to pump water into the second mole!

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In the already mentioned article on moles, I expressed the idea that you can try to fill the mole passages with water by hand.

Here it will be useful to recall the ancient Greek philosopher Thales, one of the legendary cohort of the "Seven Wise Men", who exclaimed: "What's easy?" And he himself answered: "Give advice to others." This dictum fully applies to me. So, faced with this problem in practice, I had to admit that my thought was wrong … After all, if the pump was pumping water into holes for eleven minutes, then how much time and effort would it take if I carried it in buckets?

After that, every morning he carefully examined the site. For five days, new molehills did not appear. “What a fine fellow I am that I drove away these damned moles so quickly,” I praised myself. I did not fail to happily inform the neighbors about this. Alas. It is not for nothing that a well-known Ukrainian proverb says: "Don't say hop until you jump over." On the sixth day, the mole appeared three meters from the workshop. Again, I extended the hose from the well. And in two minutes he filled the underground passage with water to the top.

The next morning, the mole appeared directly at the door of the workshop. Since the available hose length was not enough, it had to be extended. It took me less than a minute this time. For four days, there were no fresh molehills. On the fifth day, another mound appeared behind the fence on the meadow. And then the mole did not show itself for a whole week. I prepared to celebrate the victory over the annoying beast again. But the mole or moles first appeared on the opposite (western side of the site) - five molehills at once. Then I noticed three more molehills on the east side of the site. And then off we go …

Moleholes appeared one after another in the most unexpected places. And by the fall, almost the entire plot of fifteen acres was covered with molehills. It was a real mole invasion. As it turned out, the moles occupied not only mine, but all nearby areas. × Notice board Kittens for sale Puppies for sale Horses for sale

It is well known that moles are insectivorous animals. They feed on earthworms, insects and their larvae. And in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia (3rd edition) it even states: "… The soil-forming activity of all moles is useful." Maybe this is so, but I am somehow very uncomfortable walking through the area shoveled by moles, each time risking falling into their turns.

Almost all of my neighbors, as they say, gave up, realizing the futility of fighting these animals. Not me! In unpleasant moments in my life, I always remember an apt saying, though I don’t remember from which book: “Fight and never give up!” Therefore, I will definitely continue to fight moles. And these are not just empty words, there is some basis under them. In November 2009, in Pushkin, a middle-aged man entered the train carriage in which I was traveling. He sat down opposite me and began to look through the newspaper "24 hours". While, opening the newspaper, he read the article that interested him, I on the side that was facing me drew attention to the title of another article.

I did not remember the exact name, but there was something very similar to "How to smoke moles." Having contrived, I began to read … In the article, the author claimed that he got rid of the moles by pumping with a vacuum cleaner (in about the same way as a vacuum cleaner is used for painting) into their underground passages smelly smoke from burning rubber galoshes. Moreover, according to him, the moles got out of the ground not only on his site, but even in the barn of neighbors. I was about to ask the man for a newspaper to learn more about this method of fighting moles. However, to my disappointment, the man left in Pavlovsk.

As I understood from what I had read, the successful summer resident had to work hard. As he writes: you need to burn galoshes in a closed container (you can easily imagine what a stench it is!). In addition, care must be taken not to burn through the hose of the vacuum cleaner. And something else. I will try to find that issue of the newspaper in order to thoroughly understand the described method of fighting moles. If I get a positive result, I will definitely share my experience with readers.