Moles, we are inundated with moles, or more visibly at least, mole hills,
I think the friendly farmer may be sending his mole man; I’ve written about moles before.
With powerful, stubby front legs front legs and massive paws, the moles have been powering through the field. The spoil heap they leave behind are like miniature archeological digs every one it seems, contains shards of pottery.
The past generations that have lived here might have been a tad clumsy or had fiery tempers, but one things for sure they broke a lot of crockery. From the top of the field near the house, to the bottom it emerges.
All the domestic waste would have been thrown in a miden, this is what remains.
We may be digging some substantial trenches in the near future, I’m wondering what we might unearth.
It would be easy to become obsessed in getting rid of moles
April 10, 2009 at 6:55 pm
Just laughed myself off my chair!!
April 11, 2009 at 3:12 am
Argh! Can’t see the Jasper Carrott video until I’m at a broadband location. But I have a thought about the crockery pieces. What if the previous owners thought they could discourage the moles by burying sharp shards of broken crockery all over the lawn? Wily moles.
April 11, 2009 at 7:32 am
How wonderful. Maybe the Moles are finding these little treasures in all sorts of far stretches and are leaving them as presents for you in trade for use of the field? Maybe they think they are highly valuable? Or maybe people of the past simply used your field as a dump site, trying to fill in some land……
April 11, 2009 at 10:44 am
You’re right it would have been a dump for domestic waste, during a time when there wouldn’t have been local authority collections. Certainly as late as the mid 1970′s a school friend of mine had no refuse collection from her farm house, a house that is, admittedly, a bit more isolated than we are, they composted, burnt, or buried waste. But I’m just amazed how much crockery there is! Plain salt glaze and fine china.
It obviously doesn’t work as a mole deterrent though, but in makes a turn around the field a treasure hunt!
Gerry will you get in trouble for laughing in the library
April 11, 2009 at 11:22 am
The moles will disappear as the water table drops down and just think, all that lovely soil to be collected and used instead of buying compost to grwo things in – nothing like molehills.
We used to make mosaics of all the broken china, clay and pottery we found. Dishes (melt an old vinyl scratched vinyl record for a ‘dish shape’)or just simply cover old bottles and they made table lamp bases – oh we had some fun and used to go scavenging for bits and peices and pray somebody would drop something on the stone kitchen floor.
April 11, 2009 at 12:36 pm
Laughter is permitted – even encouraged – in our library. Also well-behaved dogs. We’re a little different . . .
April 12, 2009 at 4:04 am
What an interesting post (as usual)! I loved the animation ~ hilarious! Would you like to exchange a mole or two for a raccoon? Sorry to say no shards of pottery turn up, and no mounds, just holes where they dig for grubs.
April 12, 2009 at 4:04 pm
That is an absolute classic animation! xx
April 14, 2009 at 10:47 pm
Wow, I’ve never seen moles to bring up anything other than dirt!
My Dad still says that the only useful thing our old cat ever did was to get rid of the moles. She used to sit by a molehill, listening intently, then suddenly run and pounce on a different hill and start digging. She caught one of them once, but then dropped it in the flowerbed… all the tulips went flying as mole and cat commenced to dig at full speed! I think it just got too stressful for them, and they moved a few houses down.
April 15, 2009 at 8:13 am
Your parents or the moles moved a few doors down?! Our dog loves a good dig at the mole hills, she has little chance of a capture, she is far less stealthy than a cat.
April 15, 2009 at 1:31 pm
The moles!
April 16, 2009 at 5:28 pm
I love that about whether the previous generations were clumsy or fiery-termpered! I am both but have only let fly with a mug (or two) on one occasion. They must have been living even nearer the edge in those days – but that’s not how we think of them, is it!
April 16, 2009 at 6:36 pm
They also had the disadvantage of, stone floors, stone sinks and only oil lamps or candles to see by, so may be it wasn’t all temper! I’m sure every pot must have been precious though
April 25, 2009 at 7:31 pm
hi ms uhdd – lovin the shaun the sheep and larry the lamb. still can’t decide what i think about the other pic though. xxx
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