Our Weekend Saga

This weekend I was wandering around the house, and I saw our cat very interested in something right outside the window. Usually she is just looking at birds, but I thought I'd go over and see, and give her a little love while I was at it. Imagine my surprise when I saw this:

Can't see it? Here:
and this:

and this:

and this:

Did you see? Could you count them all? There were 4, yes 4, chipmunks outside the window! I told the wifey about it and when she got home from work, we investigated it a little further. We both recall seeing one chipmunk there a few days prior, and even saw one last year. But it was a bigger one. The mommy, we both guessed now. We had never seen 4 baby chipmunks there before. We went out and found a hole that they kept running into behind the insulation at the bottom of the house. We opend the bulkhead, filled in any obvious holes, and were about to fill in the outside ones when I heard a scratching. It was an insistant scratching - one that made me want to itch myself! I thought they were scratching on the other side of the open bulkhead door, but boy was I wrong! Screwed onto the underside of the doors are pieces of styrofoam insulation. Somehow all 4 babies got inside (or at least underneath) the styrofoam!

We went about prying it off (as soon as we found some plywood to cover the open basement). We pried and pried and heard lots more scratching. Suddenly, one popped out, and ran for the hole in the house. After a little more, another one did the same. We worked really hard to get the darn foam off, and finally it gave way with a huge pop! One of the remaining babies scurried up the door. Sadly, in all our effort, we accidentally broke the other one's legs. It was breathing, but couldn't move. We had to run and get our neighbor to take it away. He came over, picked it up with the gloves I gave him, and carried him off to put him out of his misery. I was so sad. Sure, I didn't want them living under my house, in my basement or in my bulkhead doors, but I didn't want to kill them. I thought about that one all night and my heart was broken. But my wife was right, they could get to be a real pest if we let them live where they were.

So we finally filled in all the exterior holes we could find. Yesterday morning, we went out and saw that they had at least dug another hole to try and get back in. (it didn't look like they made it through the barricade). I plugged that hole up with rock. I saw them outside the hole earlier in the day before I plugged it, so hopefully they are not in there and will find another home. Today we checked, and there are no more holes and the rock is still in place. Wish us luck that they have finally moved on.

What a way to spend my 3 day weekend! On the upside, I did get the pool up and running, even if I did get caught in a huge downpour in the middle of it all!