Meet Hazel, head of gopher control

Every farm has a pest management program. Ours has four legs, ears like satellite dishes, and does not respond to performance reviews.

Hazel is our Kelpie mix, born on the Fourth of July, 2023 — which explains a lot about her approach to defending this particular patch of America. Her official title — insofar as anyone who naps under the Gator can hold an official title — is Head of Gopher Control. She takes the role seriously. Far more seriously, frankly, than she takes "come," "stay," or "please don't jump." She greets every visitor at full speed, convinced they drove out here specifically to pet her on the head — and honestly, once you've met her, that's more or less true.

Why gophers matter

It's easy to laugh about gophers until you farm with them. Pocket gophers are genuinely devastating for crops — alfalfa, garden beds, and yes, grapes. They tunnel along the rows and eat the roots right out from under a vine. Above ground everything looks fine, until one day a healthy young vine wilts for no visible reason, and when you tug on the trunk it lifts out of the soil like a cork, with nothing left below.

We've lost many vines to gophers over the years. Every white grow tube in the young blocks marks a young vine — and a fair number of them are replants for vines the gophers already claimed for the underground salad bar. Traps help. Diligence helps. But nothing on this farm works the problem like Hazel does.

Her favorite day of the year

If you want to see a professional at the top of her game, come by in the spring when the alfalfa fields get their first irrigation of the season.

Here's how it goes: the water spreads across the field, the winter's worth of gopher tunnels start to flood, and the residents come up to reconsider their real estate choices. Hazel is waiting. She has been waiting all winter. She positions herself like she's read the irrigation schedule — honestly, we can't rule it out — and goes to work.

Her single-day record: six gophers. Six. We've had years where the trap line didn't do that in a month.

The rest of the year the Gopher Patrol makes her rounds through the vineyard rows and the lavender beds, head cocked, listening to things happening a foot underground that we'll never hear. When she starts digging with intent, we've learned not to argue with her. She has a better strike rate than we do.

The bottom line

Farming in the valley means sharing it — with the cottonwoods, the sandhill cranes overhead, and, less romantically, the gophers underneath. We'll keep setting traps and keeping watch. But the real perimeter defense sleeps on the porch, works for kibble, and is very, very good at her job.

This month also marks an anniversary: three years since Hazel came home to the farm, in August of 2023. Three years, countless patrols, and one still-unbroken single-day record later, the gophers are surely marking the date on their little calendars too.

Give her a scratch behind the ears if you visit during harvest. She's earned it.