Moleganic Farming
"Huh? Suhwan, what's with the outfit?"
I was dressed in the clothes I used for chores, with a wide-brimmed straw hat pulled down over my head, so of course Noona was looking at me like I'd lost it. Fair enough. I did look a little ridiculous, and the hand trowel in my grip only made it worse.
Still, there was a reason for the getup.
"Figured I'd work on the garden bed today. Those moles showed up out of nowhere yesterday and wrecked the whole bed out front."
"You're doing it yourself?"
"Nothing else going on, so I might as well. Thought I'd stream while I was at it."
"All right. If you need a hand, just say so."
I left Noona nodding behind me and headed straight for the garden bed.
One look at it, and I let out a small sigh. Moles from who-knows-where had left the place a complete wreck. The Korean melons and watermelons I'd planted close to the house were down, and so was every little ornamental flower I'd put in for show — the whole lot flattened.
"Might as well start the stream."
I sighed again, pulled out a tripod, and fixed my phone to it. Then I went live on Mutube.
The second the live began, viewers came flooding in. A few guests who realized I was streaming even drifted over with their phones raised.
"Doesn't the look just land? Work clothes, a straw hat, and a trowel on top of it."
"......I don't know much about beekeeping, but I do know this. You don't scoop honey out with a trowel."
I shook my head and picked the phone back up, turning it on the garden bed the moles had ruined. Flowers and crops lay strewn about with their roots torn free, and the frame filled with deep holes punched all through the soil.
"Today's project is cleaning up the garden bed. As you all know, my ability works on plants too, so I'd been growing these...... and then the moles went and shredded the whole thing."
"I'll be catching them, sure. Just not the kind of catching you're thinking of."
At that, the chat filled wall to wall with question marks and people hooking onto every word.
"Hey now, I told you it's nothing like that. Watch and you'll see."
I grinned, pulled out a chair, and sat. I'd bought it for camping, and it was earning its keep.
"All right, kids. Out you come."
"Kyuueng......"
At my call the garden bed began to heave, and fist-sized moles came tumbling out in a rush — close to ten of them. Watching them poke their heads from the soil one by one, I couldn't shake the feeling that I ought to have been holding a whack-a-mole mallet instead of a trowel.
"Correct. These are the very culprits who wrecked the garden bed. Go on, you lot — look over here and say hello."
"And where, pray tell, ought we direct this greeting......"
"Ah. Right. Your eyesight's basically gone."
The viewers started hammering the chat. Most of it was nonsense — incident this, controversy that, demands that I explain myself. I ignored it and had the moles wave their forepaws at the camera in greeting.
They were a bit dirty, but look closely and they were almost cute. The nearly invisible eyes and the wrinkles all over their bodies counted against them, and yet a certain charm was still in there. Watching those stubby little legs flail as they tried to scoot forward, I caught myself smiling without meaning to.
"For today, these guys are going to help me tidy the garden bed. The one who makes the mess is the one who cleans it up. So the rest of you — no incidents."
I put the moles straight to work.
With nearly ten of them taking orders, the job moved along at a crisp, satisfying clip.
First came turning over the bed the moles themselves had ruined. Once the fallen plants were cleared and the tilling began, they overturned the soil with practiced ease. By the time they were done, the earth looked as if it had been crushed to powder — perfect for planting. They had worked the ground with everything they had.
"Good work."
When the tilling was finished and they surfaced, I handed each of them a mealworm. Half-blind or not, they demolished those worms with tremendous enthusiasm.
People could shout about exploited moles all they liked. I paid them no mind and put the crew back to work. They were the ones who had wrecked the bed, so my conscience was clear.
This time I had them dig holes the right size for planting. Nearly ten moles followed my instructions and dug in earnest, and they kept the spacing perfectly even — regular as a machine. Only then did I get up and load their little arms with mealworms.
I brought out the plants I'd prepared ahead of time. Tiny as they were, the moles couldn't lift anything bigger than themselves, so that part fell to me. Even so, because they had tilled the bed so thoroughly and dug the holes just right, the planting went smoothly. I started with the Korean melons I liked best, then watermelons and tomatoes, and every kind of flower besides. Before long the ruined bed was full of plants again.
"Whew. I'm beat."
"I'm sorry, what? You all watched me plant them."
I looked into the camera like I couldn't see the problem, and the chat caught fire.
I did my best to ignore the donations and the chat. I also ignored the moles still trotting around the plants, lightly tamping the soil.
"What good would burying them do? They'd just dig themselves right back out. I didn't need the trowel because they worked so well. There is absolutely no other meaning."
To prove my innocence, I tossed the trowel into a corner. The moles seemed to slow down a little after that. Had to be my imagination.
Once the work was done, and before they could settle in for a mealworm feast on camera, I moved them to a spot I'd prepared in advance. A proper habitat, so they wouldn't go wrecking a perfectly good garden bed for no reason.
"From now on, don't wander off digging holes all over the place. Live here."
The moles shivered all over, as if the new home suited them just fine. Then they scattered and began punching hole after hole across the ground. I watched, scattered mealworms for them to eat as they pleased, and picked the camera back up.
"I compensate my animals plenty, you know? A house and meals, both. At this point I'm practically an angel of a boss, aren't I?"
The crooked-boss talk died the moment their new habitat hit the screen. It was spacious, and it fit moles perfectly. No ordinary person keeping pets at home could have offered them anything like it, so the title no longer stuck. Set against what they had done, what I had given them was the larger share.
"It's not working them, it's a deal. They work, I feed them. Anyway, stories......"
One viewer's request sent me back through my memory. Sitting with it a moment, I realized there were quite a few.
I'd sent Yubu after a helium balloon that escaped into the sky, and when I couldn't be bothered to get up I'd had the Pudgies fetch my phone. Oh — and when I proposed, I made the kids handle all of that too.
Not quite a few. A lot. The more I thought, the more kept coming back. I'd put Chikin-i to work fishing things out of places I couldn't reach, and once, stuck with a heavy load and no cart, I'd had Hanmu haul it.
Then one memory in particular surfaced.
"How about the time I went to reserve forces training? This was before Soeun was born, so some of you might already know it. The guys who trained with me posted about it online."
Reserve training. That was the one that had come back to me.
"This was back when people still thought I was an Animal Communicator, not a Druid......"
I settled into the chair and, like a man hosting a radio show, began to tell them what I remembered.