The worksite was an old field that was being cleared for a future prairie and oak savanna planting. On the front of the loader, the hydraulic jaws of the grapple bucket were wide open as I eased the lower deck of the bucket under the edge of the large pile. I clamped the jaws down and bit into maybe a third of the debris; as I pushed the entire pile forward a foot or so. The noise and large pointed teeth on the powerful jaws gave the machine a formidable and intimidating countenance. But I knew it wouldn’t matter.

They all had small wounds consistent with the pellet size of a BB gun, and no apparent exit wounds. I found the half-eaten remains of a meadow vole and a thirteen-lined ground squirrel next to the nest, both of which were very freshly killed. I think the mother was feeding these kills to her young nestlings when the killer scared her off the nest. The motive for this killing is incomprehensible to me, and possibly the intent was irrational to the perpetrator as well. The sadness I felt for the loss was even greater when I considered the dark nature of the act by some of those who walk among us.

There are many layers to Al Quie and his relationship to our community, this church, Minnesota, the larger region, and the entire US, as a matter of fact. And to help you with a little agenda, our little strategy this afternoon, I'm kind of thinking of what it might have been like for Al when he was a student at St. Olaf and as a retired teacher.

Just to remind you that Al grew up on a farm that was just a couple of miles east of us here. The farm is still there, of course, but that's where he lived when he was a youth.

Most of my observations of pocket gophers have been while they were dumping dirt from their excavations of new tunnel extensions. Gopher mounds are created when the animal pushes dirt out of a short lateral tunnel off its main tunnel system. The discarded dirt fans out away from the plugged opening at the base of the backside of the mound.