{"id":668,"date":"2020-12-22T13:59:14","date_gmt":"2020-12-22T21:59:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/davidsterry.com\/blog\/?p=668"},"modified":"2020-12-22T17:55:09","modified_gmt":"2020-12-23T01:55:09","slug":"how-to-kill-a-mole","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidsterry.com\/blog\/2020\/12\/how-to-kill-a-mole\/","title":{"rendered":"How to kill a mole"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"How to kill a mole - What I Learned - 2020-12-22\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ueYI2NDclng?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>A few weeks ago, a mole took up residency under our lawn. I don&#8217;t have a problem with wildlife but this rodent was averaging a mound a day, presumably as s\/he expanded their network of tunnels and foraged for earthworms. You can tell a mole from a gopher because they will create a mound that is round and centered on the tunnel they used to push the dirt up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Previously I had success on another lawn with my patented flooding method. Then I used a hose as a sort of snake to get down into the tunnel delivering water all the time. I was surprised when the mole, wet and&nbsp;likely gasping for air, emerged from a nearby hole. The mole quickly sought shelter in our garage under some stairs. Thankfully, he had cornered himself so I was able to usher him into a cardboard box for a later release onto public land.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This time, water didn&#8217;t seem to help though, presumably because the tunnel network was too large to flood. Looking for solutions, I tried something our gardener recommended called a Gopher Gasser, basically a small firework that makes toxic smoke. I dug a bucket-sized plug out of the lawn, opened the raceway, stuffed a lit gasser into it, and replaced the plug. The next day I had hoped to see no further activity. Instead? A new mound. Gassing didn&#8217;t work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Next, I went to Home Depot and bought their recommended treatment for moles: poison gummy worms. The way these work is that you use a dowel to open up a channel down to an active raceway, then drop the worm down there and pinch the hole closed. The next day after dropping a three worms down three holes, a new mound was pushed up at one of them and I could even see the worm sticking out, the mole seeming sending a message saying, &#8220;Don&#8217;t try this worm stuff on ME!&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I cleaned up that mound and went back to the drawing board, hoping that maybe he&#8217;d have eaten enough of one of the poison worms to do the job. That was more than a week ago. Since then no more mounds. I don&#8217;t know much about underground wildlife, but I assume that wherever that mole is he&#8217;s become a sign to future residents to move on to greener pastures.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A few weeks ago, a mole took up residency under our lawn. I don&#8217;t have a problem with wildlife but this rodent was averaging a mound a day, presumably as s\/he expanded their network of tunnels and foraged for earthworms. You can tell a mole from a gopher because they will create a mound that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-default"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidsterry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidsterry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidsterry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidsterry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidsterry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=668"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/davidsterry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":671,"href":"https:\/\/davidsterry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668\/revisions\/671"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidsterry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidsterry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidsterry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}