Editor:

As a retired dairyman from the Ferndale area, I would have a big problem if I caught anybody donating a gopher to my fields ("Down and Dirty," April 2). When making winter feed such as silage haylage or hay, you're mowing tall grass and when it gets mixed with dirt from mole or gopher hills the cows won't eat it. This feed is very expensive to make and cleaning the feed mixed with dirt out of the feed boxes isn't much fun and is expensive. So, if I was Genevieve Schmidt, I would be careful where I donated my gophers.

Genevieve needs to do a little more research on gophers because they may not like the smell of garlic or onions, but they sure like to eat them. My wife, mother and friends who garden have lost whole rows of both to these miserable varmints. One other thing, if you don't want any earthworms left in your yard, which are supposed to be good for the soil, just keep punching down those tunnels. Earthworms are a large part of a mole's diet.

Kurt McCanless, Ferndale