Thanksgiving Take Out
Just before (our Canadian) Thanksgiving, I did a quick bit of outdoor decorating – I cut a dozen stems of ‘elephant grass’ from a ditch just north of here, tied them together and propped them next to the three pumpkins I’d picked up at the market. It wasn’t much, but it added a bit of ‘fall flavour’ to the front step. Here’s what it looked like on Thanksgiving Day (Monday, October 14):
The next day, when I returned from running some errands, I noticed that the pumpkin on the lower step had moved about 6 inches to the right. It wasn’t in a spot where either the newspaper deliveryman or the letter carrier might have nudged it with a foot when approaching the house, and its location meant it was unlikely that my husband had bumped into it when he’d gone off to work (in the dark) that morning. So I thought it was a bit odd, and wondered (briefly) who (or what) might have moved it:
It wasn’t until I went to put it back that I noticed bits of ‘pumpkin guts’ on the step beside it. When I rolled the pumpkin over to see where they’d come from, I found a perfectly round chipmunk sized hole in the bottom:
I probably shouldn’t be surprised that a chipmunk could suss out a free meal (according to PumpkinNook.com, “Squirrels and cute little chipmunks love pumpkin seeds. [They will] gnaw through your pumpkin to extract the seeds [and are] notorious at attacking pumpkins left out on the front step.”), but I’m amazed that s/he chose to chew through the bottom of the pumpkin instead of any of the exposed sides, and that while doing so, s/he moved it almost six inches from its original position (a chipmunk weighs, on average, about 3.5 ounces; the pumpkin is a 5 pounder).
I’ve written about chipmunks before (Humans vs. Chipmunks) – they’re amazing little creatures and such fun to have around. I’m glad one of them enjoyed a free Thanksgiving take out dinner, compliments of an animal lover who’s on … the other side of 55.
The Other Side of 55 
Ooh, and I’ve been blaming the squirrels for gnawing at the produce in my yard. Didn’t occur to me that the chipmunks would attack something so big.
That’s amazing! It wouldn’t have occurred to me to even look. I love chipmunks.
They’re fun to have around!
You are observant! The mysteries that swirl around households and family life never end. After having gone to the farm recently, I noticed a hole in the futon cover. Rick came home after having spent an afternoon at the farm yesterday to report he found a dead mouse not far from the rat poison he had put out. PLEASE no mice in the house.
We’ve had mice in the house every fall since we moved in here. They come in just as the weather turns cold, despite my husband having blocked every possible entry point he could find. They stick to the cupboard under the sink (where the garbage is) and we usually trap two and that’s the end of it. They’re tenacious!