Enjoy the view of the mima mounds, they say… (Picture 3 especially. It’s kind of bizarre, particularly at upper right.)

What the heck was a mima mound?

So I looked them up.

Nobody quite knows. One guy thought they were caused by a combination of the particular layers of soil they have in that area and earthquakes. My first reaction was ancient burial sites (trash or bodies, take your pick.)

But the current consensus appears to be that they most likely are caused by, yes, the effects of those particular layers–and the fact that they induce burrowing critters to push up rather than down as they go. Not sure I quite get why, but okay. Seems Sisyphean to me; how would they ever surface?

In other words, that’s what your gophers could make your yard look like, given several hundred years’ worth of generations in the right kinds of soil.

Note how, despite what looks like a flattened-out one or two in front, they just built the fence and mowed the lawn in back to go up and down along with the waves. (After bulldozing a bunch more to build that neighborhood, no doubt.) So I guess they’re sturdy.

My only problem with the things is that that word instantly sets off The Lion Sleeps Tonight in my head. Especially if it rains. A mima-wet a mima-wet, a mima-wet a mima-wet, hush my darling…