Block · one region of the page, as the scanner read it. It may hold a whole story, part of one, several, or an advertisement; stitching blocks into articles is the next step. Text is supplied OCR.
Page 27 · column 1 of 5 · from the scan, no model involved
By George Rowand
Times Newspapers Staff Writer
Standing in the sun on a warm June day last year, I was a beaten man.
My shoulders were slumped, the rose bush hanging loosely in my hand. I had been defeated by a small — but very pernicious — rodent. Or pair of rodents. I’m talking moles and voles.
The story is this.
I like to plant flowers in our yard. The past two years I’ve nursed a series of seeds indoors through the long winter and into the warm spring outside. Both years I’ve had so many plants that I’ve been able to give a lot away, and still our planting areas were refulgent. And yet, by the end of spring, I was in despair.
I knew we had a mole problem. I had seen their tell-tale tracks from time to time. And our nutty dog Honey even dug up the yard one day and killed one. It was her finest hour.
Still, they hadn’t been too much of a nuisance — until they took it upon themselves to decimate all my hard work.
I know what the rodent experts say: moles are actually a plus for the yard. They aerate the soil and kill grubs and they do not eat the roots of plants. All of that may be true. But they make runways for their partners in crime,
91.0%