What is a Mole?
Latin name: Talpa europaea. A small burrowing mammal with dark velvety fur, a long muzzle, and very small eyes, feeding mainly on worms, grubs, and other invertebrates.
A spy who gradually achieves an important position within the security defences of a country.
Thankfully my blog is referring to the former as opposed to the latter named type of mole. Picture the scene if you can….6.30am on a Sunday morning and my daily alarm call beckons me from my slumber. On goes Classic FM and my morning begins with a trip to the kitchen to grind and percolate some Ethiopian coffee beans. Whilst my rye bread is toasting I take a wee dander out in to the garden……and there they are like the peaks of the Pyrenees….tall and strangely artistic . In total I count 12 mole hills each of differential height, width and shape; my daughter arrives on the scene and says ‘Dad…the moles have been very busy during the night chasing worms.’ She’s right…for that is what moles pursue and the resultant manifestation is hills of top soil and a headache for most gardeners. After a breakfast of soft boiled egg (from our own hens) toasted rye bread topped with tapenade, houmous, grilled tomatoes and chopped chives, I head out to the garden to confront the enormity of the task in hand….the removal of the top soil of 12 mole hills. Despite the emollient benefits of listening to the majestic Swedish Tenor, Jussi Bjorling singing ‘Tonerna’ on my Zen Nano Plus, I nevertheless look at these steep mounds with trepidation. With a spade and wheelbarrow by my side and my daughter playing with Freya, our Gordon Setter I make haste with the task in hand…..8am turns to 9am and so forth and trips to the local recycling centre increase steadily. By 11am I am fatigued! Sweat seeps from every pore and I feel the strain of mole hill removal on an industrial scale. My arms ache after grappling with a soil laden wheelbarrow that has a tempermental attitude and dodgy front wheel that squeaks with rotational annoyance. However, later in the afternoon, and after a period of relaxation and indeed contemplation I have time to think about the beauty of this fluffy black mammal and the occasion where my 4-year old daughter and I had discovered a deceased mole and had buried it with full natural honours under a pile of stones opposite our house. Despite the toil of this day I remembered feeling good about myself as I had engaged in quite intensive exercises using muscles that I hadn’t really used before as I mainly exercised with my legs and lower torso as a hill-walker. In addition, it afforded me an opportunity to spend time in the garden listening to Buzzards mewing overhead whilst my daughter played on her trampoline stopping occasionally to throw a tennis ball for Freya to chase; so I would like to thank the moles of Burnhervie for the rural work-out but more so for adding diversity to our animalistic world and for promoting my holistic health and well-being.
This contrasts rather markedly with the life and death of King William III. William was well on the way to creating a European alliance against Louis XIV when his work was cut short. On February 21st 1702, William was riding in Richmond Park when his horse stumbled on a mole hill. The king was thrown from his horse and he broke a collar bone. His weakened body could not take the shock and William died at Kensington Palace in March 8th 1702.
The mole appears to be no one’s friend; farmers and general gardeners look at this species with fatalistic distain upon each soil-hilled manifestation; however I have a different outlook; moles do what they have to do to survive and they only live for 3-4 years so the last thing I would ever want to do is to mal-educate my young daughter to mistreat any animal or to be involved in any culling measures just because it has a mixed reputation. In this part of rural Aberdeenshire the mole is certainly a friend of mine.