April 27

In the years when we first moved to this piece of land, trying to make a yard from an old field around a house only recently western white pine timbers, we tried to discourage the moles from digging by throwing poison down their entrances, by making runnels of their tunnels to drown them out, by planting vibrating posts around the yard to ward them off, but nothing worked. The moles went about their nights, which included their days, paddling back and forth across the sad excuse for a lawn, popping up here and there to eat sunflower seeds or dandelion greens or whatever drives them forward, like the need to explore the vast unknown drove Columbus. Also the greed for gold. Some things are inexorable. We walked their paths, tamping the earth back down to try to save the grass, and have learned after some years that moles will not be tamped down nor drowned nor discouraged, but will leave on their own terms, in their own time, in their own manner. Which is probably more than can be said for us.