I discovered a mole had moved in because I heard last night a strange chittering coming from the yard. When I went out to investigate, I found that my cat had caught something. I went over to investigate. I thought by the noise it was a bat, but I shined my light on it and it turned out to be a small rodent.

It wasn’t a mouse. Its fur was almost blue in the night light, and its face was tapered. It barely had eyes. I bent over to see it and it chittered up at me.

The mole could walk, and I took the cat in so the mole could get back to its nest.

Normally, I hear that gardeners consider moles to be pests. I on the other hand think that moles will make for excellent irrigators. Their tunnels will fill with water and help trap water below the surface, and will help loosen up this hard clay-saturated soil. According to the internet they enjoy eating grubs. And in the spring there are LOTS of beetles.

Dig away, little mole friend! Welcome to the garden.

Update: Something has burred through my radish test bed. There are no more radishes. Well, I need to do a better job of providing biodiversity and more variety of root vegetables, set up perennial vegetables, and understand that the season for radishes has passed.

Update 2: The cat caught the mole three nights in a row. Apparently the mole is not too bright. Or Mr Poofy is excellent at catching small rodents now.

A mole has joined the garden by mehron is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International