I have five gopher traps that I have set in my backyard, trying to catch what I believe is one gopher making a mess. I usually have success catching gophers, but this one is wily. He has tripped my traps 4 or 5 times without getting caught. I am using all my years of gopher-trapping experience, so it will only be a matter of time before I catch him. We caught the one making a mess in the front yard, and when I catch this Wily one, it looks like we have another out in the orchard. My Dad hated gophers in the hay fields. The mounds of dirt they made were very hard on the cycle blades on the swather. He would pay us .25 cents for each gopher we could trap. I used to tie a string from the trap to an empty white plastic chlorine jug so I could find them, and then, when the hay got taller, I had wooden stakes with red surveyors’ tape on them. Whenever I see a field full of gopher mounds, I think of what my Dad would say. There are people around who make an income from trapping gophers. Several years ago, a guy pulled into the church parking lot to ask a question, and while we were talking, I looked in the back of his pickup, and it was half full of dead gophers. That was his business. Once, while I was on a bicycle trip, Patty hired a guy to catch a gopher that was making a mess in our yard, and he charged $25. That is a lot more than the .25 cents I used to make as a kid. Gophers are a nuisance, and I have jokingly said that God sends them as discipline for sin in our lives. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that they are demons, messengers of satan, meant to keep us humble. Whatever, I am going to kill as many as I can.