Still Batting A Thousand

After a particularly grueling day at work, I was blest to be sitting this evening on our deck reading along side a tall cool ice water. I raised my eyes over the 8^th chapter of Acts and saw Mr. Chipmunk standing motionless, right in front of his little hole going under our shed, about twenty five feet away. (Now, it must be told, this particular hole had originally belonged to Mr. Black and White Rat, but he has not been seen in this vicinity for many moons.) This rodent likes to jump from the shed to my safflower feeder and empty it in one sitting. And I have not figured out a way to baffle his efforts. The traps I had been leaving at night right in front of his whole, and then moving inside to the corner of the shed during the day, have not been effective. I had been blaming the Save-a-lot peanut butter, but it didn’t matter. He was there, right now, laughing (inside, of course) at me and my methods.

An excited killdeer flew by low and scared him into his hole. My time to act was now. (I had not yet poured a drink, and was still fairly ambitious due to the warmer temps, and the fact that this type of activity would be something that did not include cutting the grass.) I went inside, grabbed my Daisy Powerline 880 Dual Ammo Air Rifle, without having the scope mounted and without even sighting this bad boy in at all, and went to my bedroom/blind.

The left window we keep the air conditioner in has no screen – I would prop that one open about eight inches, giving me enough room to catch him coming out of the hole.

The view from my bedroom/blind looking east toward the Chipmunk's lair

The right window we have a screen in, and I keep it open with a fan in front of it when we don’t run the a/c.

I kept my focus right above the large hosta, where he would come out of his hole and provide me an opportunity to rid us of him. After what seemed like four or five minutes, I shifted my gaze to the right, and found him! At the back of the shed, standing on a 4x4 apparently smelling for my scent (or perhaps he was inwardly laughing again, well fed on safflower seed).

I did not waste time contemplating. I brought the rifle up and took aim quietly and stealthily, and exhaled, and squoze.

Pfft, right through the window screen, and into his cute little furry noggin. He fell off the 4x4 slow motion like, flopped like a fish for about a second, and then was still.

I ran and got my Buckmaster knife (my favorite one for this type of endeavour J), and found his lifeless bloody self; ready to be deposited inside several Kroger bags and into our garbage can.

Mission accomplished, our Tigers are winning 2-0, and life is good.