Re: garden report

rimat wrote:
> 
> <snip>
> 
> 3.  there are holes in the dirt throughout my bog garden (what's the
> difference between a vole and a mole?).

Moles tunnel underground, are blind, have amazingly soft, dense dark 
grey fur & have large, strong front claws to dig with -- they eat all 
kinds of soil insects, but also munch the roots & bulbs of various 
plants. You can spot their tunnels aboveground because the soil "humps 
up" as they tunnel & you can sometimes see their entrance/exit holes. 
Moles love to burrow under a thick lawn because they relish the grubs 
that reside in the roots of same.

Voles are tiny mice, usually stout-bodied for their size & with short 
tails. (Field mice, at least here in Colo. mtns., have long tails & 
tufts on their ears.) Voles will make use of tunnels other rodents dig 
but mainly live & forage aboveground, chewing up vegetation at 
vole-height. They are a major pain where snow lies long because they 
stay awake & keep foraging all winter *under* the snow -- they often 
damage the bark on young trees during this time, by chewing thru it to 
the pith.

Then there are "pocket" gophers, who tunnel but are not blind, have 
brown or reddish fur, ordinary rodent-type feet & fat cheek pockets to 
store their gleanings until they are safe from predators & can chew in 
peace. Smallish holes in the ground with a piles of dirt outside 
indicate gophers have been there. Don't know whether you have the same 
beastie in upstate NY that we have here but you probably have some kind 
of relative (of the gopher, I mean -- not *your* relative!) These 
critters are much more damaging to our gardens because they are small 
enough that their tunnels don't hump up much -- all you know is that 
your plants & bulbs are disappearing, apparently into thin air, but 
actually from underneath. Gophers of all kinds love tulips & most other 
bulbs except Daffodills which are poisonous to them (& to varying 
degrees, to all mammals), which is why I interplant Daffs with 
practically everything.

There endeth this natural history lecture.

Marte in the mtns	Zone 4, Sunset 1  Colorado  Rainy & cool today
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