When it comes to squirrels and chipmunks there is an exceptionally fine line between preposterously cute and inherently evil. The line was drawn by humans and therefore has no meaning to squirrels and chipmunks and, even if it did, they can only be cute for so long.
Last spring, a certain number of squirrels and chipmunks began exploiting the seemingly endless supply of bird seed that collected beneath the feeders. They were an efficient clean-up crew, stuffing their cheek pouches with sunflower seeds and millet, distorting their faces into gluttonous caricatures before running off to their secret larders, struggling to hold their heads up and even running sideways due to the weight. They had a good thing going but, being squirrels and chipmunks, they got greedy and messed it up.
Launching themselves from any and all nearby objects, the squirrels became furry projectiles. They would deliver glancing blows that scattered seed on the ground below, emptying the feeders at an alarming rate, but only if they could not actually catch themselves and hang on to a feeder in order to chew through plastic, aluminum and zinc-plated steel. That was like hitting the mother lode and the question of where they were stashing all that seed arose.
Clues started sprouting up in the form of sprouts. Specifically, sunflower sprouts in the ficus and millet sprouts in the African violets and, not long after the discovery of their little agricultural enterprise, it began to snow pink insulation as the squirrels adjusted the R-value of the attic to their liking by pushing it out through their newly chewed-through entrance.
With all the cottages at Fish in a Barrel Pond full of Club members and their families, the use of guns was out of the question. Not that crawling into the attic with a shotgun was an option to begin with, but something had to be done and what was done was this: Continue reading →
The View from Fish in a Barrel Pond 