I first attempted gassing the villain. Lullaby and good riddance to the pocket gopher intent on destroying my flower bed. But by the time I identified the culprit, it had taken three large and well established plants.
First my tall blue delphinium withered for no apparent reason. Then two large clumps of pink yarrow, a graceful perennial with feathery fronds, vanished entirely. I didn’t notice their absence at first, until while weeding I noticed only one slender yarrow stem. Its tiny blooms reminded me that they’d been part of much larger plants.
The thief knew the business well. It slipped in and out again without leaving a footprint. Not a broken stalk or up-ended root.
Thriving, tall plants don’t sink into the soil like a miniature Atlantis, I told myself. Something strange moves underfoot, I told myself when even the single leftover disappeared. But when I removed my wasted delphiniums and found no roots below the soil, I told myself (teeth clenched, jaw set), “This means war.”
A few mornings before I noticed the missing plants, the yard in front of the flower bed had begun sprouting horseshoe shaped dirt mounds. A new one each morning. Moles, I’d first assumed. They aerate the soil and do no permanent damage. We stamped down the mounds, hoping to discourage them.
The piles kept reappearing.
I did some research and found a more sinister underground bandit. The pocket gopher leaves crescent-shaped mounds as it pushes dirt up from its tunnels. Then, just like Bugs Bunny, it pulls its buffet choices into its underground dining room. On larger plants, like my delphiniums, it takes the roots only.
Three times I hooked up a garden hose to our van muffler, stuck it into the gopher’s tunnel and let the van run for forty minutes. Success, I thought, after my first attempt, when we woke to no new mounds. At least the critter had a merciful death. But the following morning, Lullaby Louie had left two new mounds, and the one-a-day pattern resumed.
By the time a quick-snap trap dispensed the pocket gopher, it had also ingested my tulips, most of my lilies and part of a young spirea bush. Most worrying of all, excavation mounds appeared beside the pillars of the front deck, a possible threat to its stability.
I knew a woman once, a well-loved model of faith and godly behavior. In her final years she began to exhibit foul attitudes and speak hurtful, uncharacteristic words. Over time, she moved past the ability to mend the damage. When she died, her faithful example had all but collapsed.
I don’t know her specific bandit, but it played the role of a spiritual pocket gopher, likely mistaken for a harmless mole. Perhaps she’d stamped down the mounds for years, refusing to deal with the real troublemaker.
Lord, show us the truth about our inner varmints and may we be willing to work with you to dispense them – before they ruin both us and our witness.