Digging for Gold!

There is nothing worse on farmland these days than mounds and mounds of fire ants. But before fire ants were imported in the early 60s there was something just as annoying— post oak land full of gophers.

The gophers made large mounds of dirt and created a nuisance whenever Dad tried to farm the land or mow hay. He acquired about six box traps and issued them to me. He told me for every gopher I trapped he would give me 5¢. The trap was a wooden box about 4x6 in size. It had a spring action that caught the gopher around its mid-section when it walked through the trap and pushed the trigger. The gopher would die from lack of air.

In order to set the trap against an open hole, I had to dig with a small hoe until I found a tunnel and square up the hole to fit the box trap into it. After carefully placing the trap against the tunnel, I would put oak leaves over any openings on top and sprinkle fine dirt over the leaves to keep them in place. There was a small hole at the front of the trap, which was also the opening that the gopher would peek out of to come out of his tunnel. Usually that was the last sign of daylight that gopher ever saw. I caught at least five gophers per day. Multiple this 25¢ a day for one week and I thought I was making lots of money for my piggy bank! The cats liked me too because they were always waiting for me at our gate entrance. Gopher to them was like ice cream to me. But I always had to show Dad my catch before he paid me. Then the cats got their supper.

Of course, when the fire ants came along, the gophers went into decline. I guess the babies were eaten by the fire ants.