Chipmunks occupy a unique place in the rodent world, distinguishing themselves from their less charming cousins.
Mice are vermin. They shit in your cupboards and eat your wasabi peas. Over the years we’ve tried many ways to control them: Cats (effective, but messy), live traps (sounds like a good idea, but I’m not sure that relocated mice live out the idyllic life you imagine), snap traps (the rip-off-the-band-aid solution to which you become quickly inured.) Laura, cruelly, prefers any of the above options to my laissez-faire approach which results in mice walking brazenly across the kitchen floor pushing a tub of Jif.
Squirrels are a different matter. Primarily outdoor creatures, they are the equivalent of quirky neighbors in a rom-com. You cross swords with them around the bird feeder but you’re not interested in extermination, only in damage control. Since moving to Virginia they’ve not been a problem. Either we’ve become more clever (not likely) or we’re dealing with a dimmer strain of the beast Scurious carolinensis.
Chipmunks live somewhere in between. They’re cute, they don’t eat too much, and they can sing. You probably wouldn’t be too bothered if they came inside. In fact, until we moved my entire contact with chipmunks were of the singing variety. It’s no surprise that the collective noun for a group of chipmunks is a “circus.”
The bonded pair of Chipper and Chipwich (I assume they are married as they carry on a Lockhorns-style relationship right before our very eyes) have become welcome parts of our lives. Initially they foraged for food under the big feeder, but soon I began scattering a highly curated mix of sunflower seeds, corn, and peanut halves. Next came a brutalist-style stone condo that their agent says they like, but financing is difficult in this market.
First some things that might surprise you. They are Cheetah-fast, covering the entire length of the soon-to-be White Garden in less than a second. They are fierce. The presence of another chipmunk within twenty feet (spouses excepted) is something up with which they will not put. Most of the battles are ceremonial, but they mean business. Don’t even ask about squirrels. And they know which side their metaphorical bread is buttered on. After only a few days they learned that if they sat and looked longingly into the kitchen window I would come out and scatter ChipperChow (patent pending) on the terrace.
Mealtimes consist of not so much eating as hoovering up cracked corn and peanuts into ginormous pouches in their cheeks and scurrying off to what I assume to be some underground lair. They are very deliberate about what they choose, spinning pieces of food in their paws and discarding half of what they find. The internet tells us that they will, in fact, hibernate, abandoning the field to their fellow ground feeders the jays and doves, and making the bleak months of January and February even more gloomy. And here I’ll sit, channelling Tony Soprano and his ducks, til they come back to boss the mean streets of Willow Greens Farm.
Of Mice and Chipmunks
I did chortle at this but implanted deep in this gardener's memory, in the area where grudges are held, is the unforgiven sin of these mid-range rodents digging up and destroying 27 of my prized Jan Van Graaff lilies one summer during a dry spell. They were after the moisture in the bulbs. I have learned to put out saucers of water for them in periods of no rain, but I most resolutely will not feed them to encourage them. We suspect they have an underground city under our garage plinth, so if the entire double garage suddenly disappears into a sinkhole one day, we'll be moving to the trap-and-splat modus operandi.
Thanks for the late afternoon chuckle. Great entry!