h a l f b a k e r y"This may be bollocks, but it's lovely bollocks."
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So, just to clarify, that was a NO on the ammonia refrigerant, then? |
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The little bastards just laughed, and re-excavated their
tunnel system six inches to one side. So now I have a
duplicate set of mole runs and mole tunnels, and the first
set smells of old pee. |
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I used to work with a Instrument Tech named Smith. I drove over to his place one time and he had an oxy-acetylene torch rolled out to his front yard. He was on his knees with an evil grin. He had the "rosebud" attachment hooked up, unlit, and stuffed into a gopher hole, pumping in raw oxygen and acetylene. I watched, transfixed. After about 5 minutes, he rolled the bottles away and tossed a kitchen match into the hole. It felt like an earthquake. I forgot what I went over there for. |
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My condolences. All the pyrotechnics are fun, but traps, traps, more traps are what worked for me. |
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[8th] might be your man for this job... except
I think that fire and flash-bang are more his
modus operandi. |
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While you're waiting for the numeric
'collectible' to arrive, could you please
elaborate on the idea a bit? I know what a
Tesla coil is... but unless it's zapping the
moles as they surface, I'm not sure how it
helps. |
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Can you find all of the entrances? |
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Good. Now get a whole bunch of friends around, and some dry ice. Basically you need to drop in a handful of dry ice and seal all of the entrances as quickly as possible. They should all asphyxiate before they can dig new openings. |
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If that doesn't work, try something more toxic. |
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Isn't there a HB rule against animal cruelty? |
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Learn to love the moles.... it's only a lawn. It's your mind you need to change, then the moles (as a problem) will then depart, for this only exists in your head. |
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You cannot possibly favour the "rights" of blades of grass over that of a living animal? What does it say about anyone who takes pleasure in inflicting pain on another creature? |
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Oh dear. I had meant to delete this - the result of a man
at the end of his tether late at night. But now it has
garnered a protective shell of annotations. |
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[Custard] et al - gases of all descriptions are pretty useless
against moles. They dig on multiple levels, so that neither
heavy nor light gases will fill the entire system. They can
also close off a tunnel in an instant, and can dig a new one
almost as fast. Explosives......there are issues. |
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The premise of this idea was that damp soil is reasonably
conductive. An array of spikes pressed into the damp
earth, and then zapped with a powerful voltage (I was
thinking of anodes and cathodes in an alternating pattern)
ought to kill the moles quickly and effectively. However,
realistically we'd be looking at several megavolts. Still.... |
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[xenzag] the grass is under my dominion too, so it is a bit
short on rights. I'm happy to save the whale and the white
mountain orangutan, as long as they don't turn my lawn
into a battlefield. |
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If the moles had made just a bit more effort over the last
few hundred million years and evolved like we did, then
they'd be the ones trying to eradicate me. But no. As
Darwin said, speaking of the struggle for survival and the
evolutionary race between hunted and hunter, 'ya snooze,
ya lose." |
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Butane is denser than air.
Not as seismic as acetylene and oxygen, but quite effective. |
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//Isn't there a HB rule against animal cruelty//
Humane pest control isn't cruelty. |
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//I am a man at the end of his tether//
Your head gardener is at the end of his tether, shirley? |
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//Your head gardener is at the end of his tether, shirley?// |
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There's a rule in the Buchanan estate - never ask a man to
do something which you wouldn't be prepared to do
yourself. Obviously, this has its limitations, but the
bottom line is that I can't just tell the poor man to get rid
of the moles unless there is a way to do it. God knows
he's done his best; his hearing may never recover,
although they've saved his fingers. |
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Good staff are increasingly hard to find and to keep. We
lost our fourth under-pantrymaid just last week, which
means that nobody is really looking after the underpants.
Last thing I need is for the Head Gardener to walk out. |
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Tea leaves in one's cup of tea are far from pleasant. |
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//the grass is under my dominion too// now you sound like Ronald Reagan: "Once you've seen one tree, you've seen them all". |
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Even the Bush administration had a mole problem. |
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Moth balls, lime, or castor oil. |
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Moles are subterranean animals, so their hearing
would be exceptional. Powerful sound waves should
be able to disrupt their feeding and other behavior,
driving them insane. I suspect they have a "sweet"
spot in terms of sound frequency which they are
highly sensitive too. |
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Actually, moles are pretty indifferent to sound. Various
methods alleged to deter moles include: |
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setting an empty wine bottle in the ground so that the
wind makes an eerie mole-scaring sound. |
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sticking a child's windmill in the mole hills. |
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burying a cheap transistor radio (switched on). |
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spending large sums on space-age ultrasonic mole repellers
(these are great - they are always advertised with a
drawing of a mole running away with his hands over his
ears). |
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burying one of those "musical greeting card" gadgets
(minus card). |
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Not one of these methods has any effect whatsoever,
except to make the mole move six inches to one side and
start over. The verges of the extremely busy road near
where I live are pockmarked with molehills, as are the
grass areas adjacent to many major runways. |
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Moles are pretty insensitive to sound or smell. They are,
however, quite sensitive to pitchforks. |
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// Last thing I need is for the Head Gardener to walk out// Aye, the barber can't be expected to nit-pick as well as trim. |
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100kV? Pffft. The moles are laughing at you. |
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What you need is a tent peg, a model rocket, 1km of fine copper wire, and the patience to wait for the next cumulonimbus cloud. |
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Killing moles just makes them angry. |
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Seriously, moles are territorial. If you kill the one or two in your garden, there will be half a dozen from the surrounding area digging all over trying to claim the territory. |
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Leave the moles and the tunnellng will settle down. |
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I was recently reading some memoirs of local characters from the end of the 19th century - the mole catcher knew his job was always safe - as soon as he'd caught a few moles on an estate, there'd be more moles and more work. If work slowed down, he always knew where to find a couple of moles and 'introduce' them to one of the big estates, resulting in territorial disputes, enthusiatic tunelling and more work! |
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Better rsults might be obtained by exploiting human's propensity for violence. |
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The best method might be to promulgate the view that some part of the mole has an attractive quality, or some special benefit; pehaps "Mole meat makes you younger". |
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The demand for moles will increase dramatically, and within a short period they will be hunted to extinction (something your species seems to have a penchant for). |
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(8th) Would that work the way it did with Mink? |
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Valued for their fur, they were imported and extensively farmed (much easier than hunting them). Some escaped and took up residence, causing all sorts of upset by eating rare birds eggs etc. |
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Where's my moleskin trousers? |
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N.B. Mole meat makes you constipated. |
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// Mole meat makes you constipated // |
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There you are then, the perfect natural organic diahorrea remedy. |
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"One man's meat is another man's pharmaceutical preparation." |
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//Mole meat makes you constipated //
I-mole-dium? |
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Careful there [Abs], you're risking a trademark infringement. |
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That reminds me of the story about the lost Gerbil...on a similar thread, constipation would be likely if said mole was inserted in the wrong place. |
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Unless it tried to dig its way out. |
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"Killing moles just makes them angry." |
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KARMA, KARMA, KARMA, KARMA~~~MOLE KARMA~~~ |
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What you need are garden gnomes blowing little vuvuzelas into the tunnels. And snipers waiting for them when they emerge. |
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Hmm. Killer Robo-Moles ? Tiny tunneling Terminators ? |
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What worries me is that, having posted a hypothetical and
implausible solution to the furry talpid problem, it seems
that mine is still the most practicable solution on this page. |
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//Whatcha need is some ferrets to drive them out of the tunnels//
You can get a ferret down a mole tunnel?
What sort of mutant moles (or ferrets) have you got? |
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... And so will be born another halfbaked idea: |
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"Device for inserting ferrets into mole tunnels": |
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A pair of oversized gloves with steel digging tips, are fitted to the mole. When the mole digs, the tunnel is larger than normal, due to the paw extensions. The hole is large enough for a ferret to enter. |
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//Learn to love the moles...// |
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xenzag, if you feel this way about moles, I have a live one I
can ship you at this very moment. |
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If not, he's going on a five-mile drive to a pleasant, quiet
meadow far away from my gardens and far from the hustle
and bustle of estate life. Here, he will be released, to
snuffle around in bemusement for a while before
scampering off to find a nice patch of rich, dark earth
where he can begin to think about burrowing again. At
this point, there's every likelihood that a kestrel will
swoop down and eat him. |
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Give these guys a call [MB]. [link]
You could start a petting zoo, now wouldn't that be nice? |
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[2fries] the video appears to depict some sort of North
American dwarf beaver. |
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My gripe is with East Anglian Giant Moles, and they are far
more difficult. They were bred back in the middle ages
from the natural East Anglian Large Mole, in order to
facilitate the drainage of the fens. Shafts would be dug
twenty or thirty miles apart, and moles of opposite sex
dropped into each shaft. The resulting tunnel was as
straight as a Roman road and almost a perfect 24" circle in
section. |
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Naturally, a good proportion of these East Anglian Giant
Moles escaped, and have caused problems ever since. |
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//I am a man at the end of his tether.// |
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Lateral thinking: what's the other end of the tether secured to? Whatever it is, could you get a mole to dig it out for you? Then you would be free. |
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How big is this lawn of yours Buchanan? |
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I don't see the problem: just add a bit of automation to the trebuchet. |
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//How big is this lawn of yours Buchanan?// |
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We've never been entirely sure. |
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It is a little known fact that the dungeons of Norwich castle were dug by the pioneering use of the East Anglian Giant Mole. |
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In a moment of pure genius, the architect dug a shaft and lowered a pole into it with the mole tethered to a rope which was wrapped around thwe shaft. As the mole began to dig, the rope unwound, allowing the mole to dig in a spiral until the required radius was achieved. Repeating the operation at several levels resulted in a cyclindrical dungeon. Spoil was removed by forcing peasants to eat it. |
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The above may be utter bollocks. |
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Small lawn = plausible solution |
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Apart from kestrels, what else predates moles ? |
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Maybe you need the mole equivalent of myxomatosis. |
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//what else predates moles ? // |
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Algae, the continental crust, the Moon and "Happy Days". |
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careful with the horse. It won't like the holes. |
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I know. The horse is already quite unhappy about pieces of
paper, unexpected shafts of sunlight, rabbits, metal gate-
closers, and a seemingly endless array of other minor (but
apparently deeply disturbing) items of everydayness. |
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It also gets new shoes more often than I do, wears twice as
many of them, and they cost more than mine. |
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To have it catch its foot in mole-hole would just be the
iceberg on the cake. |
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William III
horse
molehill |
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sudden re-arrangement of the above |
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That's nearly a haiku, [pert]. |
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Crank up the volume and learn to love the Mole Song.... link (you owe me now Max) |
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You guys are thinking far too small [link] |
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Actually i'm all for living with the peacfully [-] |
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I doubt the moles would pick my spelling |
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Far be it from me to suggest that this isn't an
ingenious, earth-shattering and life-affirming
example of the brilliance of the human mind when
faced with a seemingly intractable problem, but this
isn't an ingenious, earth- shattering and life-
affirming example of the brilliance of the human
mind when faced with a seemingly intractable
problem. |
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Well, it might be, and then again, it might not. |
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It could be earth-shattering. Given the right soil conditions. |
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//Apart from kestrels, what else predates moles ? // |
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You mean, other predat(ors)? |
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"Moles have few predators, because they are not easy
to catch. Snakes, foxes, raccoons, and owls will eat
them if they can catch them."[link] |
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Sounds like even they have little luck with moles. |
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"From the main tunnels, the mole digs several side
tunnels which head towards the surface. Then the
mole digs "temporary" tunnels from the side
tunnels. These are what the mole uses to look for
food. Temporary tunnels are just under the surface
of the soil. The mole does not re-use the temporary
tunnels, it just digs new ones when it's hungry." |
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This might explain why your moles keep moving 6"
to the side. That's what they do. |
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[Max], wherever you are; I hope you took with you the Magnificent
Collection of Handy Hints you chronicled on this site over the years!
I bring this up for an admittedly Self Serving Reason; that is, it
occurred to me that 1) I may need a number of my own Half-Baked
Brainstorms to be doable in the next life, and 2) if you're anywhere
close by I may need assistance with MY OWN Mole Problem, and 3)
what if I AM the Mole in the next life, hmmm?? I'd certainly like to
be cognizant of any extermination effort you may resort to, Shirley? |
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Respectfully Submitted Into The Ether, |
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