Olympic cat prowess
(Note how this mole is surrounded by demolished roots of plants. Not a pretty picture).
We've been battling moles and a gopher for about a year. About this time last
year it was heart-breaking because we had just planted a lush lawn. We
were actually so proud we took pictures of the lawn. Then the changes occurred.
Little mounds started occurring as if there were some West Virginia coal miners who
had shrunk themselves and were inviting themselves to our barbecues.
Disheartening is an understatement. Then plants started mysteriously
disappearing. Entire plants would be sucked into the ground. I called the UC Davis
Cooperative Extension and the omnipotent Joe Connell told me I likely
had a mole AND a gopher.
Varmints.
Great luck. This must be what little Dannielynn will feel like when
she's 18 and learns that Anna Nicole Smith is her birth mother and that she didn't
win the $450 million settlement.
We actually considered using poisons and gases but just chose to live with
the misfortune.
One time Bonnie, my best friend next door, said she saw the mole rearing its
head. I grabbed one of those ornamental metal stakes, you know, the ones with
the dragonfly at the top, and shoved it down the hole. But the then 8-year-old
freaked out and practically called me Satan for wanting to kill an animal.
The newest development in the saga is that my neighbor has decided to make her cat an outside cat.
The cat is named Tigger but we call him Tiggy. He's an apt orange kitty and
runs into our house every chance he gets because we made the mistake of giving
him wet food and tuna.
Who knew?
Recently the cat did a heroic thing ....
I was bringing over two boxes of Easter egg dy and standing at the front door and saw Tiggy
gnawing at something dappled in blood.
I suddenly got strangely excited and yelled to my friend through the doorway.
"I think Tiggy got a mole!"
Tommy and Bonnie and the 9-year-old next door all ran out of the house. There
was Tiggy looking like a Lion King chomping away at his prize.
It was, indeed, THE MOLE. Tiggy had gnawed through half of its face but the
teeth that destroyed my lawn were still prominent.
I hate to say it, but I was really proud of the cat. It made me feel bad that
I had squirted him with water and wished I had petted him more when he tried
to eat my grass. That cat was my hero and I wished that cloning was more
economical.
Ding-dong, the mole is dead.
Of course we pried the orange cat away from the offending mole. Tommy took
a shovel to unceremoniously dump it in the Dumpster, after taunting me
with it perched on the edge of the shovel. Yes, you can be a brat at age 36.
That's part of the reason I love him.
You could tell the cat was proud, sort of strutting around the yard.
Later we saw Tiggy rooting around the ivy near the hole where he had found
the mole.
The kitty was looking for more satisfaction, obviously to impress us with his
Olympic cat prowess.
Hmmm. All that work I did a year ago to give myself and others advice about
how to rid their yards of moles, and the answer was staring me right in the
face. This cat.
Comments
Yeay for Tiggy.
Posted by: Kristina | April 15, 2007 09:02 PM
Best site I see. Thanks.
Posted by: Ryker | June 16, 2007 09:49 AM