After that night's rain it was as if the heavens had decided to produce as much rain as possible, as from then on we had such a lot that the river again overflowed it's banks, but of course not as badly as the previous time when there was such a lot of damage.
Everywhere over the village people were busy preparing for sowing, and the village tractor was busy all day long. The village tractor belongs to the villagers, and at a very small fee it can be rented to plough your fields, but a lot of people had horses, so they used that to plough with. Of course I am always up in arms when the ploughing started, as the horses are treated without any compassion, and sometimes a piece of wire is used in the animal's mouth cutting through the flesh, and I saw red every time I saw a horse being hit and shouted at, and this poor animal bleeding from the wire in it's mouth. I have written about the many fights my granddaughter Kristani had with the villagers, even had some horses taken away, but I don't think that the people understood what it was all about. Animals to most of them were there to be used.
I had a very good idea to fool the bally creeper moles, who were still very much busy looking for earthworms, and in doing so of course they push all the soil away from your plants's roots, and then of course the plants, specially the young one, die.

So on the first dry morning I donned my overalls and my water boots, and started on the laborious job of scooping out the soil from a spot where I had the garden before the moles came, as it was good soil, and it got enough sun. It was hard work, but I knew that if I just planted my seedlings without doing this, I would again have no veggies this year. My plan was to take out the soil to a depth of about forty centimeters, then line the hole with some shading net of which I had plenty, before putting back the soil. I hoped that by doing that, the moles would make their holes underneath the shading net, and leave the soil inside the net unmolested.
It took me two days of hard slog, me having to take more breathers than I wanted to, as the old back muscles were not so supple and strong anymore, but when at last I stood proudly surveying my handiwork, with my compost enriched soil back on it's place, I bursted out in song, to give praise to the Lord for putting such a good plan into my head, but stopped abruptly when all the birds flew away overhastily! With a voice like mine it was maybe not a good idea to give praise that way, and a funny feeling that maybe the moles were sent to keep me from my praising when my stuff grew so beautifully before the moles came, stole into my thoughts, so I just looked up, and gave thanks by a small prayer!
I decided to plant out the seedlings the same night, as planting in the morning was a bit hazardous, because by nine the sun was scorchingly hot, and no young plant that were into the ground for only an hour or so had any chance of surviving.
The next morning saw me raising my voice again, not in praise this time, but shouting down the wrath of every god there was onto the bally snails, who had a feast on my young seedlings through the night. Luckily it was not a completely lost case, as some plants escaped the gluttonous jaws of the slimy pests, and I still had a few seedlings left in the pan, and could plant them when it was cooler!
And I did put sluggems out that night, as no other concoction I had tried was of any use when it came to the very clever and very hardy Haarlem snails!
In no time however, the kikuju grass had taken over again, and I was desperately looking for some help to remove it!