Tunneler II - The Evil Spawn in the Lawn

Not long ago I wrote about these little critters who live under my lawn. No, not leprechauns, these are destructive little vermin known as moles. They've all but ruined my nice neat lawn! They tunnel around under the lawn eating worms and even as cool as a bunch of subterranean tunnels sounds, they must go.  The tunnels and the moles.  Hey, the tunnels are too small for me, anyway. 

In addition to writing about them, I also explained a tried and true southern solution to the problem, namely Juicy Fruit Gum.  Last week, in the early evening, sun still streaming down in the hours after work, I had plenty of time to go out and carefully put Juicy Fruit gum into 6 or 7 areas of the tunnels. It is important to not get your smelly human scent on the gum, so I carefully broke it up using the paper it was wrapped in and placed them into several  of the open holes and a few I even cut into the tunnels.  I then let them sit for 3 days.

Bright at early Saturday morning I went to complete the 2nd part of my Lawn Wars Attack: Shock and Awe! Dressed in my pajama pants, a tee shirt and a long sleeved light jacket, I donned my hard garden shoes and went out to smash down the tunnels. Using a short, but heavy, step and jamming my heels into the soft dirt I went over as much area as I could smashing down the soft tunnels and returning the lawn to some semblance of flat.  I knew that if you don't get the lawn as flat as possible, the little hillocks will get hard as a rock and pushing a mower over it will be like 4 wheeling with no suspension.

I'm sure I looked the foole (with the requisite extra 'e') as I stomped up and down the yard, taking ultra small steps to be sure I got as much coverage as possible. I probably looked like I was doing some strange and ancient "Lawn Dance" as I moved up and down, stomping and stomping. Then I found something surprising. The tunnels covered more than half my yard!  It was a veritable mole-a-lapalooza! 

I finally wore myself out and went in. Now, comes the waiting game. Waiting to see if the moles come back or if the Juicy Fruit did the trick. In the meantime, the photo above shows what they do to a lawn. The smashed tunnels leave big brown spots rife for weeds to take over before the grass fills in. What am I saying...my lawn is mostly weeds anyway.

It's still going to be a bumpy mow, but at least I feel like I've made a good southern attempt at it.  Time will tell.