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Castor Oil and Joy Soap- who knew this could take care of moles in the garden? We don't have them in the garden, per se, because my garden is mostly five gallon buckets stacked around on the tire retaining wall. Well, there is the garden over at Equuschick's house (and Shasta's)- but she does all the work on that, poor sweet.
But we do have them in the yard, oh, yes we do.
Speaking of gardens, one of the favorite songs I used to sing with the little girls, back when they were little, is John the Rabbit.
Oh John the rabbit, yes ma'am
Oh John the rabbit, yes ma'am
Had a mighty bad habit, yes ma'am
Of jumping in my garden, yes ma'am
He ate my tomatoes, yes ma'am
And all my sweet potatoes, yes ma'am
And he cut down all my cabbage, yes ma'am
And he ate up all my peas, yes ma'am
And if I live, yes ma'am
To see next fall, yes ma'am
I just won't have, yes ma'am
Any garden at all. NO!
I use to sing the words and they would answer with the refrain 'Yes, Ma'am.' And then we'd start ad libbing all kinds of vegetables and fruits, getting sillier and sillier (my pink persimmons, my yaller kumquats).
I learned it from one of my favorite folk song resources- American Folk Songs for Children. There's the book, by Peggy Seeger, and the 2 disc accompanying CD set by two of her grown children (which I think is still available). They are related to Pete Seeger, but I forget just how. I wrote more about the place this set has played in our family here.
You can listen to the Neilds sing most of it here.
Here's some adorable children singing it to a different tune than the one I know:
If you're going to have moles, or rabbits, in the garden, you might as well sing about them. Then again, you can sing about most things. I think music isn't just the food of love, it's the food of life.
