It was just a Whack-a-Mole kind of week! We returned from a long weekend trip and there were just a lot of minor but “pesty” problems to solve. One thing after another cropped up, which meant rescheduling something else—whack—and then something else would come up—and something else. Whack! Whack! Whack!

I don’t even need to go into detail—nothing significant to report—so I think I’m actually making mountains out of molehills—but you know, the metaphor works.

As it turns out moles might not be the pests we make them out to be. I googled facts about moles, as I became curious about them while drawing this card, and I learned that like all of what we think we know about nature—the truth is much more subtle.

First of all, they don’t eat plants or plant roots. They eat earthworms and insect larvae. And yes, that can have detrimental effect on the soil, but they also eat slugs—which do eat plants/roots—and they serve as prey to other animals that eat plants.

Have you really ever seen a mole? Probably not! They live entirely in extensive underground tunnels, and thus they can tolerate much higher levels of carbon dioxide and less oxygen than other mammals. And by the way, they aren’t blind. They just have bad eyesight.

I took a good look at pictures—and yes, they are not in any way cuddly cute. I can’t believe they are so small (3-7” long) and how BIG their five finger claws are!

Better to make tunnels. The eastern mole, I read, can dig a 160 foot long tunnel in one night—which would be the equivalent of a human digging a human sized tunnel a half a mile long! They also eat almost their body weight in earthworms every day.

Anyway, I hope I’m done whacking at pests this week—real or imagined!