avablog

Just for the record, I do NOT approve of Ava being anywhere near the cage or the chipmunk, but Mark ignores my fears. Luckily, my dear friend KH did some research for me and found out that chipmunks don’t usually carry rabies. Whew!

I daresay you and K.H. need to L.I.G.H.T.E.N. U.P.

There I was, trying to preserve your daddy-daughter nature moment by proving that chipmunks are rarely rabid. And all I get is A.T.T.I.T.U.D.E. You’re welcome.

P.S. Also in my “research,” I discovered that chipmunks have somewhat of a Lassie quality. For your plan to be effective, you might want to haul their furry butts a little farther….FWIW.

Chipmunk kisses,
K.H.

You know I love ya, Mark….

I agree with writermom – chipmunks and squirrels always find their way back no matter how far you take them. And, sometimes they bring back friends. . . .
Funny story (or maybe not, but humor me) – a friend of my dad’s would trap squirrels and paint a bit of their tail. The suckers always came back, even when he went across the river with them.

I heard that chipmunks HATE iphones. They refuse to go anywhere near a house that has one.

The painting thing is a good idea. I was also considering tagging them somehow. That could be fun. It would be just like when I used to watch Wild Kingdom as a youth.

It’s a good enough excuse to have some adventure time with your kid, though, innit? And you got a super-cute picture, to boot.

A little adventures-with-dads-and-animals story along similar lines:

When we were kids, bats would always find their way into ye old IC house. My dad would capture them with a blanket or sheet, and then let us get up close and personal with them for a few seconds, before releasing them again (outside, of course). And to explain why we didn’t need to be unduly fearful of them. And also to explain that they were at least as afraid of humans as humans were of them — and with more reason!

My dad always made a point of showing Scott and me stuff like this, too, Jenny, when we were little. His attitude toward chipmunks has, over time, soured, and he’s now catching them with a big rat trap. Chipmunks go in, but they don’t come out.

I didn’t know whether to gasp in dismay at your dad’s change of atitude, or laugh. So I did both. And then felt bad for laughing. And silly for gasping. They really are too cute to do that to, though. Aren’t they? Tell me you won’t walk that path. Please.

We trap chipmunks and squirrels here, too. We take them to a nice nature preserve over the mountain, about five miles away.

Chipmunks are far more destructive than squirrels. They’re trying to knock down a retaining wall, despite all my efforts to deter them, they tunnel under our goldfish pond and dig holes next to every shrub I’ve planted, depriving the roots of moisture–they even dig up the plantings on my deck and front porch, and “plant” their own seeds and nuts. They chewed a hole in our garage door and in the french drains around our house, so now we have standing water all over the place, which the mosquitos just love…And they stash nuts, which attracts the huge bear population, which just crush the azaleas.

The squirrels just eat the birdseed and trample my impatiens…