A Mystery… at least to me!

We have lots of gophers in my neighborhood so I’m used to finding gopher holes in my yard. This year, when I came back from India in mid-January, I discovered that the gophers had been very active.  Soon thereafter, I noticed different kind of holes, ones that I wasn’t used to, scattered around the dirt portion of my driveway.

The ground is hard there but something was burrowing out from the earth. I couldn’t imagine what it would be. The holes were miniscule in comparison to a gopher hole but big enough to completely stump me.

Soon after I added top soil to one of my new garden beds, I noticed the holes begin to appear there as well.  I’ve never seen anything go in or out of these holes so I stayed mystified.

One day a tree service employee came to do some work in my yard. I asked him if he knew what created the holes. His immediate response was “Worms.” I wondered if he was kidding but he seemed totally serious.

WORMS?????? How could that be? I knew that my gardens contained a lot of worms, and some of the earthworms I’ve seen are very big, but I had never seen one of them on top of the earth. If his statement was true, I have to assume that there are a lot of worms coming out of the ground during the night.

Does that mean there are giant earthworms roaming the land at night? That question conjured up images worthy of a 1950’s science fiction movie.

So to those of you who know about such things, are these truly worm holes?