WEEKLY CHAT (non-osprey) SUNDAY, AUGUST 21, 2016

BrendaH: A mole! How much time do you have!!?  We had a really busy one that must have dug the equivalent of the London Underground under our dymondia. We shall probably fall through to Oz before long.  We had a pest company come out that advised something called Mole & Vole Stopper by Messina Wildlife, something they said was the best yet effective deterrent (not a poison). It has a lot of garlic plus other stuff in it which moles are alleged to dislike intensely. They applied the first batch (here it's only sold to pest companies but it's available - for less - online). I got some more and sprinkled it liberally around the garden and haven't had an issue - yet (and that's a qualified "yet"). At one time I also tried those little garlic sticks (cheap and available in garden stores) that you poke into their tunnels and those seemed to work for a while, as did the buzzer-type device you "plant" in the ground.  Unfortunately, we now have a chipmunk visiting under the bird feeder and they're diggers too, so we now have huge piles of earth under one bush and I'm trying to get up the energy to see what's going on there.  On the "plus" side, I found a deceased but unidentifiable critter in the garden the other week that looked like a hawk or owl or something had been having its way it and I can't help hoping that might be the end of the problem. Good luck.

We have a sonic stake and trust me it works Brenda...

Far better than the hose that my late husband sorted them out with..

Thank you, Annette and Wendy.  OH busy on the internet now looking at sonic stakes and looking for Annette's Mole and Vole Stopper.

Brenda - that sonic stake sounds like the thing I was struggling to remember.

Good luck Brenda when my first husband put hose down nothing else was available :-))

Right. OH has ordered a spike, which vibrates and emits a sonic sound. He has also ordered one and a half kilos of the granules. We can but try. LOL Thanks.

Annette - forgot to say, that I wondered about the amaryllis and whether it lit up, but it was daytime so hard to say. Those outdoor heaters were popular for a few years here, but then there were mutterings about them adding to Global Warming, so it became unsociable to buy one for use at home. They're popular outside pubs, & restaurants though. Some folks buy Fire Pits now, which burn barbeque nuts, or wood.

Annette, She is not called Lightning for nothing. At 19, you are not going to change her :-))

I am going to miss not watching the olympics next week. We did so well in the London Olympics that I was hoping that we would equal the medal total from then, but how fantastic that the team have surpassed that total and over so many disciplines. So proud of them all.