Moles Can’t Swim

Yup, one of those days when I struggle for a topic.  I brought up moles yesterday in regards to how much of a problem they can be to keep out of lawns and gardens.  Cats can help – I have seen them follow the path of the mole moving underground and then catch them when they stick their little heads out of their holes.  Spike traps work well but it is inhumane because their natural habitat is in your yard.  Many swear by castor oil sprayed on your yard but I never had much luck with that – apparently they don’t like the smell.  Grub killer can work well, but again your are killing more than the grubs and releasing a toxic substance into the soil.  The best thing I have found is lawn fertilizer.  When I lived in Hamilton many years ago the neighborhood had a huge mole and ground squirrel problem.  I applied granular fertilizer to my lawns – my mole problem was gone but the little critters moved next door and tore up the neighbors lawn.  I told the neighbor what I did and he promptly applied fertilizer to his lawn and the moles moved another house east.  We ended up with a very plush neighborhood with nice green lawns and the poor moles ended up living in the woods.

I have a fish pond in my side yard which I cover in the winter – when I take the cover off in the spring there are always dead moles floating in the water.  They burrow through the flower bed and suddenly discover the ground ends and the water begins.  Moles aren’t designed to be water animals –  their little legs weren’t meant to tread water.

We have 14° and a wind chill of 8 here in Otsego at 7am.

An area of high pressure will build in from the northeast today. This fair weather system will act to keep the weather dry and unseasonably cool. Low pressure will track up the Ohio Valley late tonight into Saturday. The bulk of the precipitation with this system is forecasted to stay south of the Michigan Indiana border. The Kalamazoo area could see some light snow out of this late tonight.. .but that potential has been decreasing with each model run. Thus the dry weather pattern is expected to continue.

No real warmth is in site through Thursday, however the period will largely be dry. The only weather maker appears to move in for Tuesday night and exits by Wednesday evening.