Holy Mole-y

A few months ago I made reference to a night when we found some adorably tiny baby rabbits in our back yard. We briefly considered the fact that they could be moles -- after all, we never knew rabbits could have such short ears, even as babies, not to mention the fact that they were burrowed in their soft, mewing cuteness into a hole in the ground, one that might have been connected to a system of tunnels under the suspiciously soft and lumpy soil of our yard. But that flash of reality we allowed ourselves to consider was quickly extinguished when we remembered that our back yard is just a formality, not something we actually use like normal people, and also we needed to go open a bottle of wine: "I'm sure they're just rabbits. Their ears are small because they're babies. There are no tunnels, that's crazy! We just need to take better of our grass. I'm sure these holes out here are entirely related to the fact that we haven't fertilized. So it's settled. Now, Pinot or Cabernet?"

When we put the house on the market, the realtor told us we would probably have better luck selling the place if we took the time to remove from our back yard the two or three dozen faded, broken plastic walkers and lawnmowers and sandbox toys that haven't been touched in three years so it wouldn't look quite so much like a garbage dump. People apparently don't like to purchase homes with garbage dumps in the back yard. (People are so picky and demanding, GAH!) When I walked out there to start gathering it all up, I thought it felt pretty weird walking across the grass. Hmm, yes, I'm pretty sure my shoes didn't used to sink six inches into the ground out here. I could be wrong, but I don't think so.

Yeah, we have moles. I'm surprised they haven't popped up through the wood floors in the house by now, to be honest. The guy who came to "get rid" of them (I like to imagine he "gets rid" of them by luring them out with lots of yummy mole food, maybe some nice field greens or shallots thrown in for extra enticement) placed bright orange flags everywhere he "treated" the yard. Being the deceptive and sneaky homeowners that we are, we removed all the flags before two potential buyers walked through yesterday. Oh, WHAT?! We're paying for all three of the gourmet field green "treatments". The moles will have moved to a new mole condo in Florida by the time the house sells. I just thought it might be a little unsettling for someone to look out the back door and find a sea of orange flags flapping in the breeze, harbingers of doom that say eerily, moles and rabbits are not the same thing.