I’m Gonna Get That Devil Gopher Who’s Bedeviling Me

It’s a gopher war and I resolve to outsmart him! Every New Year’s I’m resolute in my resolve to not make resolutions, yet once again when the calendar flipped from ’08 to ’09 I found myself losing my resolve in one area: Being one with nature. I renewed my resolve to go with her whims and respect her creatures [as long as they stay outside], and never be like my neighbors who kill everything that flies, scampers or burrows their way into their yard. No more! Resolve broken! I’ve had it! Had it up to here with those devastatingly cute wascally gopher cwitters. I’m beginning to think I’m turning into my neighbors, Carl of “Caddy Shack” or Elmer Fudd, although it’s doubtful I’d ever resort to using dynamite, a shotgun or a Noah’s flooding of tunnels. On New Year’s Day, while pealing a tomato for a vinaigrette, I spied out my kitchen window a tell-tale mound of newly plowed dirt. He w-a-a-a-s b-a-a-a-a-ck! The gopher war started years ago after buying a house in the way-out outskirts of Los Angeles that could accommodate three small children and one large dog. The house, at no extra cost, came with a huge back yard with a hill behind it that goes up to the sky. Due to aridness, kids, dogs and gophers, four lawns turned to dust with no where to go but in the house, so I decided it was time to do something eco-friendly to compliment a tiny lawn, that required little watering. I had the basic idea of adding rocks, cacti and maybe a dry river bed, but needed help putting it all together in one cohesive plan. Yellow Pages to the rescue! I found Rick Feldman of Gardens by Rick in Canoga Park, who answered the phone himself, and was at my front door the next morning, and in no time at all we came up with a gopher-proof, semi-arid plan…and we became friends. Who needs friendsRus.com when sometimes you can find a good friend in the phone book? With the help of his friend Alex and his tree trimming, brush clearing crew smartly dressed in matching t-shirts, Rick’s crew was able to start on the new gopher-proof, 700-square-foot lawn. So far the lawn seems to be gopher-proof, but we forgot about the rest of the yard. (BTW, if you ever have your yard cleared and all the foliage run through a chipper, you’ll save a lot of dumping charges by using the chips as weed-proofing mulch. Eco-friendly, cheaper than buying bags of bark, water-retentive, bio-degradable and just plain smart.) This time the lawn hasn’t fallen victim to the gophers; it’s the bottom step leading up to the back hill that has a base of dirt covered with recycled stepping stones from the front yard, separated by small multi-colored earth-tone rocks. At the very end of the step, the little bedeviler has tunneled up from the depths, left piles of dirt that multiply daily and displaced all the small rocks, which will now have to be gathered up in a huge plastic salad strainer (back to the kitchen), rinsed off and put back after putting down the left over gopher-proofing metal mesh, smoothing the offending area, and replacing the stepping stones. Only when the sun sets in the east will the problem be solved. The gophers will continue to move around step and find new spots to burrow through. Their constant harassment will be a lifetime project, and will keep Rick coming back. Those little devils are faster and smarter than I, so I resolve to keep my cool, try to outsmart them, and never not go all “Carl” or “Elmer” over them.