Taking Care of Mole Hills

It wasn't actually raining when I got home from work. I dashed in and got my working outside clothes on and went out to do battle with the mole hills.
Over the winter, the number and size of mole hills in our front lawn have grown exponentially! Seriously! When I made the last cut of the year, there were four mole hills, I mowed over them and that was it. Now there are over 80, I counted (you have to make your own fun sometimes).
This is one of the hills compared to my size 8 feet (European 42, US 10).

I am determined to claim my lawn back, but as with most things, it's never easy. I have to stomp them and rake them flat with the garden rake. It turns out that they don't stomp as flat as I had hoped. My boots did as much work as I could and then I raked the fine, wet soil over the grass. I got a few mole hills flattened (about 20) and I saw the next lot of clouds coming fast. I ran and got the grass seed (1 kilo of "hardy lawn seed" on sale in the marked down section of Homebase for £2.50) and sprinkled it evenly over the few mole hills that I've managed to rake flat. It had started to rain again while I was seeding, but I got all the prepared areas seeded.

Now, if the seed sprouts as fast as the packet says, we might have fewer dark spots in a week. That is, if the birds don't eat all the seed first. This is a real possibility. I tried to rake it in as best I could in the conditions. I didn't have any nice sand to sprinkle over the seed to cover it a bit. All I can do is hope for the best.

Over the next few weeks, I'll be out there at every opportunity, flattening mole hills and re-seeding them. I WILL have my lawn back.

By the time I got everything put away, I was pretty damp, so I decided that it was a good time to get the back step washed. Now the back step is a bit cleaner, some of the mole hills are flattened and re-seeded and I'm feeling quite virtuous.