Friday, October 15, 2010

Whack-A-Mole

Many of you have probably heard of the popular arcade game, Whac-A-Mole.  The game begins with moles popping up and down from 5 different holes. Basically, the object of the game is to force the individual plastic moles back into their holes by hitting them directly on the head with a mallet.

Whack-A-Mole is a popular and fun game. However, it is not at all fun when you are playing it in real life with live moles in what was once your beautifully landscaped yard. FW and I realized we had a varmint problem when we were installing the underground electric dog fence (I'll save that for another post). We saw with our own four eyes something rumbling beneath the ground and pushing the earth upwards as it tunneled through the yard.

Have a look for yourself:


I got a good photograph of it too:

It truly is a hairy animal:


Oh wait...I'm not so sure this is a mole...

Oh yes, now I see. This is not the mole at all. It is the filter for the shop vac filled with dog hair....(FW threw the filter in the woods that borders our property to clean it and then he forgot about it.)


It is not likely that I will ever catch of glimpse of this 7-inch-long underground varmint with large front paws and beedy eyes, as it rarely comes to surface. But I do need to have a plan of action to rid the mole(s) from my yard altogether. This rat-sized critter is ruining our landscape and the underground fencing system we just installed! I can tell you that "whacking the mole" with my foot did not work. My next plan is to have a stakeout with my FW's shot gun and when I see the ground move....KA-BOOM! Of course, I might make the local newspaper headlines: "Church Lady Shoots Hand Off Trying to Rid of Innocent Mole".

Unless you could offer up a humane way to rid of this pesky critter?

8 comments:

Tracy said...

Wow! Great footage. I'm sure you would like to Whack that mole. This is a job for COOPER!

Janis said...

Wow looks like you could use KiKis help! Good luck,,those things are so destructive!

Anonymous said...

Kelly, I had the same problem once, I have 2 ideas, first, put sticks of Wrigley's Juicy Fruit Gum down their holes. They love it, but it doesn't love them, or/and...the reason you have the moles is because you have what they like to eat, which is GRUBS, which they love, so, kill the grubs with "oftenal", and they will go somewhere else.It is very potent and with one treatment, should last a long time, years.
Nancy

Cheeseboy said...

My father in law smokes them out and then whacks them. He's got a huge flame thrower.

Couldn't you have just taken a sharp shovel and when you saw the ground move, try and take it's head off? That's what I would have done.

betty said...

oh my gosh! looking at that video; it was like you were waiting for the "creature from the lagoon" to pop out! it would drive Koda crazy if we had one like that invading our underground

we had one in Montana that my hubby put something down a hole and it eventually was gone, but can't remember what it was......

good luck removing it!

betty

quilly said...

Dad used to stick a hose in the hole and drowned them. Not very humane, but when the dog saw the ground move he would flip out and dig humongous holes, so between the moles and the dogs our yard was looking pretty bad.

Anonymous said...

Kel: Moles don't like vibration. If you've seen those garden windmills - they produce the vibration to keep moles away.
I had them for a time but when I saw what you did-I took my shovel and dug just ahead and BAM there they were. I killed as many as I could (there were5or 6)and they never came back..
jlg

Driftwood and Pumpkin said...

Weird!

LinkWithin

Related Posts with Thumbnails