Digging a sump at the bottom of my garden* and installing a submersible pump needs engineering skill and know-how. Luckily I have a lot of those required skills which I acquired indirectly. See, a mate of mine did first year engineering at Wits and then got promoted to first year optometry, where his vernuf rubbed off on me. Well, not directly onto me but onto my grey and grey 1965 Opel Concorde deluxe sedan. Driving the Opel then had that same vernuf seeping into my skull, which was rubbing against the lowered ceiling fabric of the modified Opel. Which had been rubbed against by a semi-engineer wearing blue suede shoes. You think I’m making this up. Ask his wife. I think that Opel ceiling fabric makes you bald, which is why real automotive engineers always mention that cars should have headroom.
So when my foot went thru the paving of my little garden* I immediately knew this was trouble. There was undermining afoot. And underfoot. I spoke to other residents of this toevlugsoord – that’s a resort – and the instant diagnosis was unanimous. It was moles. Moles? Ja, moles.
How do moles get under miles of paving? It’s moles.
Golden moles, the insect eaters with tiny teeth related to hedgehogs? Or mole rats, the tuber, root and plant eaters with big teeth sticking out of their mouths? It’s moles.
Have you ever seen the moles? No, but we see their tunnels. Aren’t those just where the water has made it’s way under the paving? In the Drakensberg you get underground streams. It’s moles.
I bumped into the honorary parks board ranger in full uniform and an Ezimvelo sign on his bakkie door, who lives down the road – Hornbill Road – from me. With my engineers eye it looks like he must catch all of the water that runs down Hornbill, directed into the road by each of the dozen or so log cabins and their paved, boxed-in gardens. His garage sits right across the road at the bottom like a cul de sac. So he must have paving undermining problems, right? I asked him. It’s moles, he said.
Golden moles, the insect eaters with tiny teeth related to hedgehogs? Or mole rats, the tuber, root and plant eaters with big teeth sticking out of their mouths? I asked. Ah, I know those little golden moles he said. They tunnel just under the grass, they don’t make deep tunnels or mole hills. Y’know, those mountains of soil? They don’t make them. Ah . .
So I’m digging a sump at the bottom of my garden and installing a submersible pump which I’m hoping doesn’t get clogged up with moles. Here’s my new pomp:
/
~~oo0oo~~
nous – vernuf
vernuf – bs
*garden – paved patch, really
toevlugsoord – closed flight resort; a place you can flee to when things are not going swimmingly; only to find out things may go swimmingly again if you can’t fix the surface water drainage problem;
Ezimvelo – old Parks Board
cul de sac – ha, this time it’s French, for Straat Loop Dood;
Straat Loop Dood – Road Walks Itself To Death;
