Chipmunks

You want Chipmunks?? I got chipmunks! At least I did. As I have mentioned numerous times, Mary and I have a place outside of Roscommon Michigan. It is 4 and a half acres of woods with a house in the middle.

Now these woods have been the home of the critters for thousands of years and we are interlopers. We have bear and deer that come through.. Occasionally a fox or a flock of turkey too pass our deck. Squirrels, both black and gray are constant companions. And the Chipmunks 

I am sorta a critter guy myself and Mary won’t even swat a horsefly when they pester us on the river. She just brushes them away and complains. I try to show her how rolling the little guys in little balls and flicking them to the fishes is a far more effective solution but she just brushes and bitches.

We have always had Chipmunks up there and that is fine. They are cute and no problem. This year is something different. The place is crawling with the critters. Chipmunks and squirrels! I had two full bags of thistle in the garage for the finches and they cleaned every dang seed out. They had not been opened and now they were empty bags.

I decided something had to be done so I started a campaign against them with Mary. I mentioned the cost of the seed and the fact that I had seen one go behind the siding. I told her how they will go up under the hood of the car and build nests in the air cleaner. I pretended I heard them in the walls at night! (Now that one will always work!!)

We would set on our deck talking or eating and be able to see 5 or 6 of the little runts at one time. They were not the least afraid of us. I normaly would scatter some corn at around 4pm for the deer but the critters had it cleaned up before the deer came in. Since I throw out a three pound coffee can of corn every time, this could get expensive! All the little bastuds were doing is filling holes in the ground with it. It was far too much for them to eat!

I must have been thinking about it too much because one night I lay in bed and was pondering the situation. I was trying to figure a way to get rid of them without Mary making my life miserable for the next 18 or 20 years. I was thinking, “They are only cute rats!” I would run that by her. I actually and this is the truth, dreamed that night that I had a pile of the little suckers and was cooking them on the Barbie!

The next morning I headed for the local ACE hardware and asked if they had a live trap for the little suckers and they did. It is a rat sized Havaheart Trap. I remember them from when I was a kid so it should be good.

Home I went. I tossed some corn in the back yard and set the trap. I headed for the deck and CHUNK I looked back and there was a chipmunk, already trapped. Now this was gonna be fun. I yelled to Mary and showed her my prize. She was so proud of me! I think the thought of cute rats in the wall did it.

Now I had to decide what the heck to do with the thing! I didn’t want to have it coming back and had no idea how good their homing instinct is. I decided to take it across the river and over to a cemetery, about three miles away. I doubted the sucker could swim the river and if he found the bridge I would pinch his skull the next time.

Off I went, across the bridge and over the hill to the Cemetery I went. I pulled over and making sure nobody saw me turning a Chipmunk loose, opened the door. Off he went! One down and a couple more to go.

I did find out that it is hard to count chipmunks when they were all over the place!

I went back home and reset it. Couple minutes later, CHUNK and across the bridge and over the hills I went again. All day long and the next I was doing it. Mary was laughing and said it was the same one coming back and making me spend my vacation giving Chipmunks rides. I didn’t think so.

I finally got tired of it after I had relocated 17 chipmunks and 4 black squirrels. Mary was standing on the lawn, two feet from the trap when a chipmunk went in and got caught! This was too much!

I went to Wal-Mart and bought a .177 cal pellet rifle. It is a nice one and cost around 70 bucks. Rifling in the barrel and all. I was gonna start shooting the little suckers! I had had all the damg chipmunk rides I could handle. They were thinning out a bit now though.

I got it home and set up a target. I got so I could drive nails with it at chipmunk distance! About 2 ft really.  I sat on the deck and waited. And waited. And waited. I will be darned the little suckers were hard to find now!

Later in the day I saw one on the lawn and took a bead on it. I took careful aim and shot but at the last moment I drew off a bit and gave him a scare shot. Off he went, up a tree. I felt like a wuss now! I had shot everything I could kill when I was a kid and now I could not even shoot a dang chipmunk. The fact that Mary was watching probably had an effect too.

I think I got most of them now. I didn’t have to kill any yet. I have a 70 dollar pellet gun that is useless to me it seems. If I am up there without Mary I just might pop a few. I will leave a few around but if she isn’t there the little bastuds are gonna be going to a Cemetery but under the sod and not on it!