Back at the house I explained everything to Mrs. Curmudgeon. “They’re so sweet. Can we keep em?”
“No. We already kicked the cat out. No more pets. You have to let them go.”
“Aww…”
“And no more tractors either.”
Fair nuff. Once that was settled, I returned (with more coffee) and refilled our travel mugs. More chatting at the tailgate. The first question on my mind was “would you ladies like to try a hand at killing gophers on my lawn?”
Except I couldn’t phrase it that way. It just came to me. These were bounty hunters after all; “Whatever you’re getting paid, I can match it.”
And thus, I’d gained helpers for my “lawn”. Before I continue, I should describe my definition of “lawn”. Suburban residents have a mental image of a lawn; a tenth acre, flat, manicured, landscaped, addition to the beauty of a McMansion house. My lawn is exactly unlike that. I’ve been known to shoot and gut deer (legally!) on my lawn.
Wherever the forest is held at bay and the grass short enough that you can see a chicken grazing at 100 yards… that’s a lawn. It makes a nice shooting lane and demilitarized zone. It’s where the chickens graze, the dog shits, and my vehicles slowly give in to entropy. It’s nothing like a suburban lawn but I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Of course, the gophers do their thing and make big huge piles of dirt. When I mow with an antique tractor I don’t care. Unfortunately, I’ve been stuck recently with a regular riding mower (which I hate). The gopher mounds high center my chickenshit lawn tractor with its lawyer approved craptacular “hydrostatic and hope” drivetrain.
So Florence and Jane set up several traps in my lawn (including an area I’d just burned). (The fact that I consider controlled burns a perfectly reasonable landscaping method explains my definition of “lawn”.)
They killed several over the next few days. I wasn’t there when they demobilized their last trap. They just pulled up stakes and split. I owe ‘em about $15 based on three bucks a pop for every dead gopher. I’ll gladly pay up whenever they show up asking for it.
Later that night I kicked back with a glass of bourbon and watched Caddyshack.