The Great American Gopher Hunt

Sometimes life throws us curve balls and we need to learn to deal with them the best way we can. One curve ball thrown to Alan recently (actually for a while now) is gophers burrowing holes throughout our lawns. They are so pesky. Alan has spent practically every weekend for months trying to get rid of the creatures, but to no avail. 

When I arrived home from the temple last Wednesday I saw something on the counter top in the kitchen. I couldn't tell from a distance what it was so I got closer to check it out.  My heart skipped a beat and I actually did a startled hop backwards when I saw what was there. This is the nice little "gift" Alan left for me!

I was disgusted when I first saw it, but eventually realized why Alan had left it there. Considering how long he had been fighting gophers, he was elated that this one just happened to drown in the pool. One less gopher to hunt. I wish that there would have been a pied piper effect where all of the other gophers would have followed this one into the pool, but that didn't happen.

After trying various methods to get rid of gophers, including traps, flooding, poison pellets, smoke bombs, and chewing gum all to no avail, Alan tried a new method today. I think this is his last-ditch effort. He read online about using car exhaust so he ordered a special hook-up where you can attach a host to your exhaust pipe and run the hose to the hole.

Alan hard at work:

I sure hope this method works. If it doesn't, I don't know what he will do. Maybe he will set off a bomb and blow up the whole yard!

We have been having problems with jack rabbits too. We have seen them in the back yard and around the pool. Last summer while I was closing the pool cover after swimming, two drenched and very scared bunnies jumped out and took off. Last weekend we discovered a large hole in the pool cover. 

We are almost certain it was caused by one of the rabbits. We are hoping that we can avoid the expense of a new cover by having Alan patch it. I hope it works. These automatic pool covers are very expensive! Darn pests!