Trouble in Heaps!

Basil brought us a gift a couple of mornings ago. At least we presume it was him, it usually is! Under the table on the veranda he had left a piece of animal. Well, two pieces, a head and a foot! The head had some really lethal teeth and we immediately recognised it. This is what it should have looked like!

(Pic thanks to Google)

It was the Cape Mole Rat, or 'Georychus Capensis', a little creature well known to all gardeners in the Cape region!! These little souls are rarely seen above ground, I think they realise that they would be in serious trouble if they dared to show themselves! They feed on bulbs (especially the expensive kind that have just been bought and planted), corms and tubers, and their burrows can be 50 - 130 metres in length. They have extremely poor eyesight and are mainly nocturnal. The only time that they do venture above ground is to forage for food or to found new burrow systems. Then they run the risk of being caught by jackals, mongooses, owls and grey herons. (And gardeners!) They are also solitary except when the female is raising young, with only one mole per burrow system and are highly aggressive towards other moles. No wonder there are so many burrows all over the place! The green belt is full of tunnels and as they run just under the ground, you end up sinking up to your ankles with every few steps you take!

When we first moved here we didn't have a single one in the garden and I chuckled heartily at the people who cursed and muttered about them. Shame I thought, they got here first.

Then they arrived. In their dozens. And my sympathy turned to anger! As fast as I planned and planted and nurtured my patch of paradise, each morning brought new heaps of soil along the paths and in the newly planted beds. I declared war! We squirted water down the tunnels, we shoved dog poo down, I planted wild garlic, but we didn't try the human urine trick! I even went out at night to ask them to leave. And I cried with frustration!

Some heaps in the garden!

Alfie was fascinated and went into 'creep mode' as he watched the piles of soil move and grow. He crept up to them balanced on three feet and then would suddenly plunge into the middle of the pile and dig. I don't know who did the most damage then, the mole or Alfie, but he never caught one, and I was secretly glad! I got a special 'mole remover machine' from Phillip to try out. Guaranteed to clear the garden in a week, it had a long silver point that was pushed into the soil. A high pitched noise was emitted every 20 seconds and that sound was enough to chase the mole out of the garden and into the neighbours!

And I think it worked, as they did leave. Then the batteries ran out and it rusted!

On the stones, makes such a mess!

And now the moles are back! With a vengeance too. But somehow I have mellowed and I have called a truce. They can stay or they can go.

But we now have a secret weapon.

Washing his paws before setting off to work!

We have a Basil!