Blasted Gophers

Warning if you are squeamish, mildly compassionate, under five or a vegan do not read this. The contents of this blog could possibly offend you. I even offend myself.


There is a happy ending though so please don't flame me and say how horrid I am.

Gophers. Pest. Varmints. Rodents. And.... mildly cute. Okay Okay, I think gophers are cute. I admit it. So it is with great disappointment in myself (a former devout animal activist and vegan ) that I turned my back on the hamster like creature, covered my daughters' eyes and let my husband whack one today as we walked the property (wearing my six month old in a Baby Bjorn and my two sons watching) Do you really want to know? Probably not..... With a shovel OKAY!!! (tears) a shovel for crying out loud!! I am ashamed. But if you must know the shame goes much deeper. I am actually secretly happy when he gets one. I have a sick tally running in my head. Gophers:9 thousand holes. Brains: 5 gophers. It is the real life version of Whack a Mole. Plus on the humorous side, when was the last time you saw a man wearing a baby in a Bjorn whacking gophers? Ummmmm funny. I don't care who you are.

This is the discovery of "said" "dead" gopher. Abby stepped in his hole and her foot sunk, the little bugger came out ready to take her down, when screams erupted from the peanut gallery Gary and I came to investigate. He (the gopher) went man to beast with my husband ( the G- Man) and tried to attack him. His squinty little eyes and yellow teeth bared flashing even the gopher was scared. hahahahah dadadumb.

Look what one gopher did to our house! Crimminey Justmas.

After irrigation, this is what one of those guys did. Really this is dangerous, if one of our kids crawled in this little cave it could collapse. Must I remind you of the Great Gopher Sink Hole of 1985, when dad slipped neck up in a gopher hole after irrigation? Or the Great Gopher Flood of 86" when a gopher flooded the basement of this same house? Something needs to be done.

Okay so I feel bad. I do. They are just trying to live ya know. So I made my husband swear we would do the catch and release next time. Which will require me to construct some king of gopher box and to use the shovel with more grace and gentleness and capture them somehow. Of course I will take pictures. (I used to capture wild birds for rescue, um how hard could this be after handling hawks and owls?) Please. I got this.

Here is another darling we found today living in the barn walls. I actually like snakes, especially this one because it eats gophers.

Abby and Mason handling the little gopher snake

Here are some more serene photos. Our little orchard is coming along nicely.

My grandpa Jo's favorite cart.  RIP

Not uncommon for a desert sunset

Blog Partay Peeps

To tired to actually fix the randomness of  this all, here are my kids in no particular age order.  Introduction to follow this nonsense. 

Mason my oldest 9

My  youngest Serenity 6 months

My middle Netsanet 7

My other middle Abby 7.5

My youngest boy, Judah 6

Well I am excited to try this for the first time.  I am still learning so much and getting back into blogging (FB took over) so I think I will be great to meet some fabulous people.

My name is Kim.  I am desert dweller and mother to 5 amazing (nutty) kids.  I journal our life as a way to keep history alive, but in the process I try to keep things funny and informative, hopefully slightly entertaining.  If you can't laugh at yourself then you are probably dead.  If you ever feel your life is unraveling, stop on by and sit a spell, mine is probably not only unraveling but the kids are probably running with the string and tieing each other up with it.


Our journey began with I DO, then 2 kids and 2 international adoptions and 1 more homegrown bun later we decided it was time for that farm we talked about for so long.  Our journey now is about self sufficiency and sustainability and of course the never ending gopher wars.  Of course the last garden we planted died.  I will not let stop me!!!  I will build a bigger one and reap much bounty!  TaDA.   (and of course photo journal it and write it all down, the good, bad and ugly.