Correct me if I'm wrong, but if we kill all the golfers they're gonna lock us up and throw away the key

This is likely an odd place to start series on farming, but I was inspired this time by purer notions than best practices or teachable failures.  This time I’ve been inspired by humor: humor the likes of which only happen in real life.

I have had a pocket gopher problem for some time now.  It was not the least bit worrisome eight, nine months ago, but the little buggers are tearing up a good portion of pasture.  They may be up to an acre by now.  I have been willing to let them go at it as a natural part of a system which I am only beginning to get my head around.   I have even thought it possible that I am at fault for this by creating an environment conducive to the bastards by mismanagement of grazing.  I know I am somewhat at fault for thoughtlessly killing a very old and obviously capable gopher snake a year and half ago; he was close to the house and I have two small boys and… it was stupid.  I do not hesitate to remove rattlers within a few hundred yards of the house, but I shouldn’t have nailed this guy.  Snakes may be worthy of another missive sometime in the future.

I have read bits and pieces on natural gopher prophylaxis.  I have run water down the tunnels for days.   I have put dog crap in the open holes.  I have personally pissed in the holes myself.  None of these options proved to be the least bit efficacious.  The problem began to reach almost Caddyshack proportions over the last month when they/he/she invaded my little lawn and Nan Hatty’s flower bed.

We live in an arid place.  I mean an arid place; we have had less than 14 inches of precip this year.  I say this not to evince compassion, rather to aid in understanding what an endeavor it was to create a little green space of buffalo grass and flowers in said location.  When the gophers started intruding into my green space is when I began to get serious.  In talking with local men qualified and not so qualified in the farming arts I have found the common solutions to be poison, traps, and, for those with a fire bottle, propane expulsion.   The propane option tempted the most.  What red blooded American male would not want to solve a problem with an explosion?  However, this sort of pest/problem management does not dovetail very well with the holistic approach I have tried to take.  I’m not sure that blowing up pests is not holistic, but I can’t be sure. The problem persisted. 

We went out of town for a couple of days for Thanksgiving festivities, and I came home alone to tend the farm while Nan Hatty and the boys spent some more time with her family.  The SOB had made new inroads to the yard and flower bed while we were out.  I am painfully aware of unintended consequences, and I have tried to think my way around what the resurgence of gopher numbers could be signaling.  It could point to mismanagement: overgrazing or lack of predators.  It could also signal an improvement.  I have read a bit of university research on this which seems to fall into the two standard camps.  There is the standard ag university kill em, kill em all philosophy that dominates.  These studies tend to be concentrated on root and surface damage immediately following gopher infestation into row crop or drilled pastures.  I can agree with these folks on one point.  It looks bad to see bare ground where once green grew.  However, these studies tend to also be the kind done to solve problems in the standard industrial ag world: the fuel, doctor, and feed world.   Looking further and running dangerously close to unallayed confirmation bias I found a few studies of gopher impact over the long term, and as one cold suspect the results show a positive impact on diversity and many suppose or imply a positive causal connection between gopher burrowing and water infiltration.  It sounds intuitively correct, but I did not find any data driven studies confirming this.  Nor did I find any data driven studies confirming the positive impact due to soil aeration.    Now, I am willing to believe that they are a natural part of the system here, but I am unsure as to how to identify any sort dynamic equilibrium state.  Herein lies the rub.  What do you do when you know you do not know the unintended consequences of your actions?  Do the most thoughtful thing you can and move on.  Consider the worst potential negative impact of your actions.  In my case, I would go back to gopherless land that I knew a couple of years ago.  I’m fine with that, but I am not fine with poisoning or blowing things up- generally.

Well, let me tell you what I did.  I saw the little SOB pop up in my greenspace.  I mean I saw him.  So, I loaded up the ole 22 Remmington pump action.   Hatty and the boys were still out of town, so I could leave it on the porch ready for the call.  At the end of a day laying blocks on the “new” house, I decided to watch a movie on the front porch.  I began to stream a film, and, in the failing light what do I see through the porch rail slats?  Yessir, he was laughing at me.  Here is where background matters.  I slowly put my beer down and reached over for my rifle.  Still sitting mind you, I sighted in on the buggers head which luckily was in view right between the two rail slats I would have to shoot through since I was in the classic beer drinking and movie watching shooting position which I do believe is a common hunting position for Dallas lease owners in elevated heated boxes shooting off of timed feeders but that is another story.  Now I do not do much shooting anymore.  I probably fire off five or six rounds checking the scope on my rifle before deer hunting and that is it other than the one or two shots for said deer.  However, as a boy I was rarely without a firearm after the age of eight or so.  Muscle memory matters.  I fired and apparently missed as he dropped back into his hole.  And, yes I am now saying he probably because it makes me feel better shooting another male.  I replaced the rifle in my hand with the beer and would have thought it a complete loss had not the hens struck up a ruckus.  I was now predator number 1 by god and surely there was something else to shoot although I have had to shoot exactly nothing since the farming enterprise began a few years ago.  I now had a rifle; kind of like having a huge standing army.  On my way to shoot at something else I looked at the burrow in passing.  What should I see but a very sleepy looking pocket gopher.  I fished him out with a step in post laying next to the truck.  They are good looking little animals, pet worthy even if not for the over large incisors.  I ceremoniously tossed him over the fence to continue the circle of life here on the farm, and to make sure Carl the dog did not drag him up on the porch.  I then walked to look over the hens whom of course were in no immediate danger other than from one another.

Walking back in the unusually warm dusk and looking over the top of Mount Ord to the east I noticed the other mounds along the 3 year old trench lines dug for water and phone.  They were covered, but evidently easy digging for the gophers which I am fine with.  I am willing to experiment with them for a while in the pasture as long as they stay the hell away from my yard.