The
Springtime Menagerie
For the second time in the fourteen
years I’ve lived in this house, we have a mouse. I saw him a few weeks ago – in one fleeting
dash behind the den sofa.
Finian, our year-old Maine Coon feline,
has yet to earn his room and board by proving himself a hunter. He’s more of a playground instructor . . .
“c’mon, c’mon let’s run laps around the dining room, leap on the mantel and
knock pictures off all the tables.” A
mouse would be merely a companion or just another toy to Finian – one with more
moving parts. To his credit, he has spent many nights as a sentry crouched in
front of the stove but he needs to show more SWAT team initiative. We have had
two kinds of traps in three rooms – for four weeks. This is one rascally, resistant rodent.
We continued to hear scrinchy, scrunchy
noises in the nighttime, without sightings.
So it was no surprise when I heard a
crash in the front hall, a few bangs against the hot water baseboard, and a lot
of scrambling noises.
“Aha,” I yelled to Richard. Finian finally got that mouse!”
I hot-footed it to the hall and stopped
in the doorway. Finian was in full attack mode in the corner. He was hopping around the narrow legs of the
plant stand, repeatedly skulking forward, swiping at the corner. Suddenly a tail, a brownish-red, fuzzy tail,
stood up in the corner. Definitely not the
appendage of a mouse. Then it swayed. Finian was leaping frantically.
Dear Richard rounded the corner. “It’s a chipmunk!” he roared.
Now before you read any further I must
state a disclaimer. What follows is
adult content containing violence, profanity and nudity. It is not suitable for
the faint of heart, members of PETA or any of our world’s devout Buddhists, all
of whom ascribe to the sanctity of life.
If you are a member of any of the aforementioned, please discontinuing reading
and turn to the Entertainment Section of this paper.
The reason for the ensuing battle? I hate chipmunks.
I am a gardener. All gardeners hate chipmunks. They eat our plants, dig holes and tunnels,
and undermine garden beds, foundations, walls and steps.
I learned years ago that removing them
from the property and delivering them to a remote outpost at least two or three
miles away, only slowed them down. They
pro-created at the drop-off spot and beat their way back home just in time to
deliver the new litter.
I researched on Google. Chipmunks deliver litters of four to five
babies in both spring and summer. I’ve spent years fighting them and finally resorted
to doing away with their populous villages by many methods – some fairly
gruesome.
Back to the front hall. I watched squeamishly as the skittering bushy
tail tried to bolt from the corner, past Finian, before he ran into Richards
right loafer. Richard, shoe in hand,
took a few swings at the speedy little devil, finishing him off on whack number
four. He took the limp critter outside and into the bushes before I had to view
him. “Oh, thank God,” I said.
“It wasn’t a chipmunk,” the Great White
Hunter announced. “It was a small red squirrel.” Aaaaaacckk! Even worse, I thought. Chipmunks
undermine your yard but one of these little rotters will eat your wiring and
burn the house down. Good riddance.
I consoled Finian for a few minutes and
headed for the bathroom. Returning a few
minutes later, I came back into the hall to check on our kitty to be greeted by
a streaking critter running at me, over my shoe and continuing on into the master
bath. “RICHARD!!!!!!” was the loud shriek.
“What, what, what?” as he leaped up from
the sofa.
“It’s another one . . . he went into the
bathroom”
He entered with shoe in one hand closing
the door behind him. Thump, Crash. Bang. Thump, thump, thump. Big crash. Omigod. Thump, thump.
Finally, Dear Richard exited the
bathroom with the dead prey in his outside hand so I wouldn’t have to see
him. The little redhead joined his
brother in crime underneath the rhododendrons . . . and in the great hereafter.
I cleaned up the blood in the bathroom,
reassembled the broken towel rack, and called a repairman to fix the hole in
the wall. But hey, #2 was where he
needed to be – GONE.
All this mayhem happened so fast that we
merely reacted. Oh, and by the way, to complete the details of the violence, no
humans were injured during these incidents. And the nudity wasn’t us – it was the shameless
squirrels.
I
hope that two red squirrels are the extent of the invasion. In case we’ve only
encountered half the resident battalion, I Googled and found, “10 ways to rid
your house of red squirrels.”.
First
rule: Remain Calm.
Yeah, right.
Second
rule: Separate them from your pets.
I can’t imagine trying to separate any invading creature from Finian the
Inquisitor.
Third
rule: Give them a way out – an open door for example. What? Let the cat out and the chipmunks in? I
didn’t bother with the other seven rules.
A few days have passed and I haven’t
heard loud scratching or seen any quick-moving lowlifes. And it appears the mouse might have finally found
his way out now that springtime is offering more edibles. We celebrated with
wine on the deck – free at last from the invading marauders.
There were ants in Finian’s food dish
this morning.