New Pets?

There's a DL at work for home owners – it's high traffic but I enjoy reading it. A month or so ago, there was a thread about moles, with photos of the little molehills, and since then I've been noticing them everywhere at work and around our neighbourhood.



Yesterday morning I woke up and thought that certain parts of the landscape looked unusual...? I didn't get out to photograph them until after the blower/pine needle roof fest, so these photos are a bit obfuscated by pineneedles, but they're freshly-dug dirt, classic circles, flat-top volcanos, etc. I'm thinking moles?



I know that this is supposed to be one of the major stressors of lawn care, but so far (knock on wood) I think they're kind of cute and unexpected. We shall see. Given that all of the "mole" googling that I've done quickly devolves into rants about lethal poison and major explosives, my live-and-let-live sense of things is growing. Our squirrel vs. birdfeeder fight was so chastising (they didn't even NOTICE the horseradish!!) that I'm loath to tread where so many others have failed. I'm more just hoping they find greener pastures in our neighbours' yards. :-)