Last Laugh: Here Today, Gopher Morrow

article image
ILLUSTRATION: M.E. COHEN
Outwitting the enemy takes help from the family cat.

While landscaping our new home, an iris nursery enchanted us: tangerine orange, sunshine yellow, vibrant violet, royal purple, midnight blue, even dainty peach. Before I knew what was happening, Ann, my dear wife, carried away by her passion, purchased $150-worth of iris rhizomes, dug up the inhospitable red clay and rock bed that was our front yard, added 0/10/10, chicken manure, and compost, and planted the irises.

Within days, I returned from work to find Ann looking visibly shaken, like someone who’d just happened by a particularly disturbing accident scene. She led me to the site of the carnage, where I beheld her ravaged iris garden: all six dozen rhizomes–gone. Ugly holes dotting the yard served as mocking reminders of the crime. Nearby piles of dirt suggested gophers. So, too, did the complete, utter, lightning-speed devastation.

Still, we refused to be discouraged. After all, lightning doesn’t strike the same place twice, right?

Ann put me in charge of the immense backyard. I tore into the same red clay and rock bed, added fertilizer, and planted vegetable and flower gardens. After weeks of backbreaking labor, I tracked the progress of each shoot as if it were our firstborn.

What? Did I really see that tender tomato plant shake itself like a puppy emerging from a bath? Suddenly it submerged. Who hijacked my tomato?

  • Published on Apr 1, 1999
Online Store Logo
Need Help? Call 1-800-234-3368