Molecatcher - The champion starts the new season in great form!

Walking Monday:     3.9km

Walking Tuesday:     3.8km

Swimming Tuesday: 1.00km

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Having an acre of land, mostly grass and adjacent to other fields, means that we are sometimes visited by moles. Normally I'm fairly tolerant of moles as long as they stay around the outside of our land, it's a different story if they wander into the more formal grass area that I have delusions of turning into an English parkland lawn.

There's a wide selection of noxious, poisonous and explosive products on sale here to deal with moles. In addition the locals have various methods of dealing with them; Jean swears by glass in the tunnels (moles are haemophiliac and die if they are cut) whilst Jean-Claude has constructed a series of wind vanes in his garden made out of plastic bottles that vibrate in the breeze and persuade the moles they shouldn't be nearby.

I prefer traps.

I bought a set of French traps four years ago, we caught a couple but soon the moles got wise and frankly a bit cocky and started pushing the traps out of the runs in their molehills. So, 2014 brought a new set of shiny British traps plus an entertaining DVD on how to set them. These were more successful than the French ones, we quickly removed three moles and cleared the lower part of the field for the whole season.

Pip can't watch videos, cats eyes don't register the images correctly. But he watched me attentively when I was setting the new traps and two days later turned up with a mole of his own in his mouth. Pip catches moles by listening for them under the ground and digging them out like a dog:

In 2014 the score was -

Expensive British Mole Traps      3

Pip.                                            7

And the champion mole-catcher of 2014 has made a storming start to 2015 with two more catches. The moles are still taking the mickey out of me though, another mole burrowed into the side of one of my traps today without triggering it ....