When a Molehill Really is Just a Molehill

I suppose I have always known about them and their propensity for outsized estimation.  I have, after all, spent my life in the church with all of its committee machinations, pastoral considerations and moral suasions.  Mountains nee molehills have dominated my professional landscape.  But I don't know that I have ever tripped over the real thing. 

Yesterday, Tir and I were getting a little exercise outside the house.  With four consecutive 60-degree plus days bridging January and February I had heard reports that flowering trees were likely to be stunted when the almost certain-to-come colder weather eventually arrives; and fruiting trees were vulnerable to the loss of more than color.  I wanted to see how significantly my own adolescent fruit trees had been seduced by our spring-like weather.  Of course my survey produced laughable results because I don't know what they are supposed to look like this time of year, although I am pretty sure they aren't supposed to look nibbled.  Deer!  Of the six, buds are noticeably bulging on three, while the other three present subtler signs.  Whether either stage of progress is normal or premature I am not prepared to guess, but at least they showed no signs of leafing or breaking into song.

It was then, while walking away deep in dendrological contemplation, that I stumbled over a mound of freshly risen dirt.  Called back to my senses, I forgot about the trees and began to study the ground behind them.  In a straight row, neatly spaced perhaps 6-8-feet apart, were these neat little hills of dirt -- at least four of them, though I lost interest in counting as they continued off into the grasses.  Here, I surmised, were the legendary mole hills that I had so long heard about and cautioned others against escalating.  Except now I wasn't merely confronting hyperbolic fearfulness, but rather willful tinkering with my land.  Somewhere under the surface of the soil is a little bugger -- or maybe even an army of them -- crazed with agricultural malice and armed with the tools to utterly destroy my future garden.  Bring on the chemicals.  Bring on the poisons.  Bring on the dynamite and the traps.  Dig up the world if you have to but capture those little underground terrorists!

Then, taking a deep and clarifying breath, it occurred to me that I might just be making a mountain out of molehill, and that there are probably simpler, calmer steps to take.  Climbing back down to ground level, I resolved to do a little study on the subject and see what I could learn.