April 5, 2016 (Tuesday)
Our lawn and those of our neighbors are being invaded by gophers. Miles away, at Bethel Baptist Church, Ingleside, the gophers are creating their mounds on the church lawn. They are native to North America, and feel right at home in South Texas.
Wanda loved flowers and each year would plant a vegetable garden. Pests of all kinds attacked her stuff, among them, gophers. How disheartening to prepare the ground, plant the seeds, fertilize, water, pray, watch it grow towards harvest size, only to have it snatched away by a pestiferous gopher.
The gopher makes tunnels under the surface, miles of them. Every so often, he emerges and deposits the soil he has moved to make way for his tunnels. It’s a real nuisance to the person who cares about his lawn or his garden.
How to get rid of the pest? One way we get rid of them at our house is just to let Dwight’s cat, “Pepper,” do his thing. You can see him on some days, waiting and watching at a gopher’s mound. The article I read about gophers says they can attack cats, but it works the other way around at our house. Woe to the gopher who dares to make an appearance at ground level.
I’ve seen cats catch prey and mercilessly play with it until it dies, but Pepper never plays. He is deadly serious. And, evidently, hungry for the taste of small beast. He devours the gopher, no matter how big, right down to the last bite. He does the same with squirrels.
We used to have a cat that was tormented by a squirrel on the south side of our house every morning. It was the same every day: the cat would show up and wait. The squirrel would appear over the roof peak, and start his chatter. I wonder what the squirrel was saying? Whatever it was, he would stay at it until the cat finally lunged toward it. Then, as fast as lightning, the squirrel bid the cat goodbye until the next day. I’ve never seen Pepper taunted by a rodent or bird that got away. He is very good at what he does.
People do all kinds of things to get rid of gophers. One guy hooked up a hose to his car’s exhaust pipe and pumped the product into the gopher’s hole. Well, he didn’t expect the result he got, because the pressure built up in the tunnel and exploded, leaving a big hole in his formerly beautiful lawn.
I’ve tried different things to get rid of gophers, some of which I refuse to describe on the basis of the 5th amendment. If I get one alive, I always take it to a vacant area and let it go. I’m a softie. But that’s not what the neighbors say.