These Mofo's Work

I detest advertising because it portrays individuals endorsing products for a fee. There is no attempt to hide what is occurring; everyone accepts the premise that the actors doing the ads are, well, acting. Vast sums of money leap into many hands. An entire industry thrives on chicanery and attractive people, who would sell their grandmothers if they could get a decent price.

These are the "mofo's"
to which I refer.

I hope I have established my disdain for ads sufficiently enough, to make the following message resonate even more for the loyal reader of this space: I am not an actor, I do not represent the company that manufactures and markets Sweeney’s Solar-Powered Mole & Gopher Sonic Spikes, and I have something to say:

These mofo’s work.

Excuse my censored French, but I am not jerking you around here; I have no motivation to inflict whoppers upon an unsuspecting audience. No, I speak the naked truth, but I do so only after extensive and exhaustive experimentation. Believe me, I’m exhausted.

Unfortunately for you, that will not prevent me from spewing. Put this in your pipe and smoke it:

Three summers ago, I lost 10 of 40 tomato plants in the orchard, for a whopping 25% loss rate, for those of you who love a scoreboard, and who doesn’t? I sputtered a lot about the viciousness of the little varmints, but as you have probably surmised by now, the gophers thumbed their collective noses at my sputtering, which is pretty good because gophers don’t have thumbs.

Two summers ago, I lost 16 of 160 tomato plants, for a much reduced 10% loss rate. I became the Great White Hunter, employing five gopher traps while wearing gloves, probing the earth for their tunnels, inserting the traps and then waiting, with the requisite bated breath. I moved those traps around all summer, dizzying the gophers-I am sure-with my efforts.

I struck out, unlike Ellie Mae, farm dog extraordinaire, who collared two of them, bringing each to me in the same manner as a cat. I am convinced it was her way of saying, “Yawn,” to the whole idea of catching gophers.

Say what?

Last summer, I lost 6 of 160 for a 4% loss rate, after installing one of Sweeney’s Solar-Powered Mole & Gopher Sonic Spikes. I was outraged a day or two after I installed one of the gadgets out in the orchard, when the two tomato plants closest to the beeping device, keeled over dead. I took it as a sign from the gophers that they were not to be trifled with.

This summer, with 146 tomato plants in the orchard, I have lost none, after installing not one, but two of Sweeney’s Solar-Powered Mole & Gopher Sonic Spikes. I took a different approach this summer from last year, though, and read the fine print.

“Sweeney’s Solar-Powered Mole & Gopher Sonic Spikes require one-two weeks before they begin to take effect.” Oh. It takes that long for the critters to get annoyed enough to leave the ‘hood. But it’s been nigh onto a month now and I am still batting a thousand.

My tomato plants look better than ever, convincing me that the gophers did even more damage in the past than I might have realized. Just because the plant survives a direct assault, does not mean that the plant has not suffered, probably missing a fair amount of its support system to the gophers’ dinner table.

I actually relocated one of the two Sweeney’s Solar-Powered Mole & Gopher Sonic Spikes, from the orchard to the spot behind my house where I have my cucumbers, along with another 99 tomato plants. The miscreants had changed 'hoods.

“Move along, lil doggies, move along…”

As of yesterday