Neighbor Girls

I grew up on a dairy farm here in NW Wisconsin, about 8 miles from where we now live. Eventually I married the neighbor boy and after living in Arizona for a short time, we came back and settled in the area.

Lots of water has gone under that bridge.

 Holstein Heifers resting in the pasture

I remember that even as a kid, there was a kind of security I felt because we lived on a farm. I'm sure my parents didn't feel the same sense of security as they were working long hours to make ends meet -  my dad working on the farm and my mom working away from home from the time I was 9 years old.  I'm pretty sure they didn't work that hard just because it was fun. But there was always something about owning land and barns and having all those big Holstein cows that made a child like me feel safe -  and gave me an affinity to the land that has never left me. I remember always thinking that the important thing was the land, rather than the house sitting on it. In reality, there is nothing romantic about the hard work of farming. 

Some people will never understand what I mean about the importance of the land. But years later I read O Pioneers! by Willa Cather and realized that she knew exactly how I felt.

 'Um, move over Lady. Three's a crowd!'

And here I am so many years later, still living in the country. My husband is a contractor and we rent out our tillable acres.. We've lots of space out here, plenty of room for kids to run and play and build forts when they were young, and a large vegetable garden that my daughter-in-law and son are going to share with us this year - and access to a creek and a woods. I love it.

Who can resist a face like that???

And, of course, we have plenty of yard to mow, weeds to pull, and burdock to try to eradicate. I'm thinking that goats would have been a good idea. But right now, my immediate problem is trying to figure out what to do about all the moles that seem to have migrated to our place over the past couple years. I don't want to set out poison because Bridger and Misty could get into it.

But the moles are really taking over our yard.

Do you have any good and pet-friendly ideas for getting rid of moles?

And I'm also wondering if you grew up in the city or in the country and how you felt about it.

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