Poison.

Alice Cooper just played in North Charleston. I couldn't see him, because I had to spray the yard. These seem to be unrelated things, but they're not. I continue in my quest to gussy up to grass. Moles continue to make a mockery of my efforts. We water and feed and seed the lawn; while moles, in search of succulent grubs, dig it up. "Kill the grubs", they say, "and the moles will leave quicker than you can say Jack Robinson". We've tried the pricey grub killers; however, our lawn must be pretty tasty, because the grubs always come back. With the return of the grubs, the moles return as surely as the tourists traveling South on I-95 pull into the Cracker Barrel at Exit 53. So what's a gardener to do? Well, I took a tip from Alice:

The First Cut is the Deepest.

Leaves, weeds and grass awakening from its Winter slumber all cried for action today, so I fired up the John Deere and took a ride. The first cut of the Season deserves a shout-out. I've heard Sheryl Crow and Rod Stewart opine that the first cut is the deepest, but they weren't the first first-cut crooners. Here're a few versions:

A Guy Walks into the Clemson Extension Service...

First, the joke: A dude decides he wants to become a chicken farmer. First he finds a few acres, then he buys a hundred chickens. He's not sure what to do, so he buries them up to the neck, and a week later, they're all dead. He buys another hundred, buries them head-down the next time, but they still died after a few days. Perplexed, he goes to the Clemson_Extension_Service for some advice. The agent asks him to explain the problem. The dude says, "I bought a hundred chickens and buried them up to their necks, but they all died. I tried again a couple of weeks later, but they also died. What's wrong?". The agent pondered for a minute, carefully stroking his chin. "Well", the agent said, "First I'm gonna need a soil sample..."

I'm no farmer. Shoot, I'm having a devil of a time growing grass. The lack of a lush lawn actually, improbably, led me to acquire a soil sample from the front, back and side yards of La Maisson Jeune. We sent them off to the Clemson Extension Service, brought the results to the Flower Barn, where we got some excellent advice, and an invitation to purchase some weed and feed in a week or so. Oh, and our soil is apparently not "chicken grade"...

Monster!

I was pulling weeds at La Maison Jaune over the weekend, and I ran into this monster. It looked sorta like a flea, but this sucker was as big as a small cat (which reminded me of a David Bowie song, reflected in the second clip below).

It had a really long spiked tail, too!
Here's my trophy weed at left. It took me ages to get around that rootball and pull it up. I shot it with a silver bullet and ran a stake through it, just to be sure it wasn't coming back.





(My mom, by the way, was not a David Bowie fan, and that song left her a bit cold. Ah, well, what are you gonna do?).

Making Mountains Out of, You Know...

I've ranted about squirrels, it's true; however, my antipathy for "tree rats" is nothing compared to the bile I've generated for moles. Gotta get Austin Powers on the job!