Mkulima Moments: Moles open new battlefront with critic

For the last few days, I have been busy trying to devise a way of getting rid of moles from my farm. You are aware that our groceries’ business with Wandia, the girl I love, has been doing well.

To meet the demand in the city, I decided to expand the production area of the highly sought indigenous organic vegetables.

This was to help me supply continuously the vegetables and capsicum to my dedicated customers after investing in a Sh60,000 drip line.

The farm has been doing well with the capsicum looking greener, healthier and promising. But few days after flowering, the hohos started wilting.

At first I thought it was bacterial wilt, a soil-borne disease that affects capsicum and tomatoes, but the soil test proved otherwise.

(Read also: Mkulima Moments: Disease lands me in trouble with the chief)

For three days, the healthy capsicum started disappearing underground as small mounds of soil took their place.

I realised the farm has been invaded by moles. These small rodents had decided to ruthlessly consume and destroy my capsicum. 

Wekesa my farmhand suggested we drain water in their tunnels.

“Si tuziwekee maji zikufe,” he suggested. The tunnels drained all the water we had stored in tanks in vain. I gave up on the exercise.

THE MOLE HUNT

After a little consultation, I was advised to get a mole hunter, who usually smokes them out from their breeding grounds.

“Mimi najuanga nyumba ya fuko kutoka kitchen hadi bedroom,” claimed Mbugua, whose contacts I was given by a farmer in Mashambani. 

We set on digging and following all the tunnels of the moles from the destination, which is my farm to their breeding areas.

Interestingly, all the tunnels were leading to Mzee Jeremiah’s secluded piece of land on the southern part of his land that borders mine.

The piece of land hosting trees for many years seemed to be Mzee Jeremiah’s lifeline as it’s from the small forest that he gets high valued herbs for his "miti ni dawa soup" that he claims keeps him younger. 

But Mbugua’s work brought a new challenge because to stop the moles, we had to dig all the way into the forest.

Previously, I recalled Mzee Jeremiah having a similar problem with moles and he hunted them down into my farm.

It was now my turn to hunt them into his forest, and because he had not consulted me, the previous time, I also didn’t see any reason why I should consult him. Furthermore, he wasn’t around.

We continued digging down the tunnels up to Mzee Jeremiah’s land. We had just destroyed one breeding nest when Mzee Jeremiah shouted from the roadside.

LECTURING ME

“Mkulima, how dare you destroy my livelihood?” he roared.

“It is moles that are destroying my crops. We have just found one breeding nest,” I humbly replied.

“But you don’t use a cannon to kill a mosquito. You are destroying the forest just because you want to catch a mole?” he added.

“No, they are many,” I replied in an attempt to justify our digging up.

“I don’t care,” he thundered before saying, “These mole tunnels will kill my forest. Do you know how long it takes to have a forest like this? You are educated enough to know how ecosystem works,” he started lecturing me.

“Mzee, just see how these moles have causes me losses,” I said pointing on my farm.

I thought Mzee Jeremiah would understand since I have been offering some manual jobs to one of his grandsons, but he did not bulge.

“If this is where they stay after feasting on your crops is none of my business. You have to leave or I go to the chief,” he said.

I remembered the last battle we fought at the chief’s office, and although I won, I did not want to be dragged to the administrator again.

We cut shot our mission and left. I am now working on a formula to deal with the problem.

Mbugua suggested I dig a deeper trench between my farm and Mzee Jeremiah and destroy any breeding ground on my farm. I will go for that.