Saturday, September 27, 2008, 18:56
One Lucky Little Chipmunk
Friday evening, Randy stepped off the porch and then started doing a shuffling sidestep. The sun was about to set, so it was right around 7 p.m.
"What is that?" he said, looking down at the ground.
A tiny chipmunk scurried through the grass. With our gray tom Gabriel right after it.
"No!" Randy shouted.
He gave chase to the cat who was chasing the chipmunk. It was just a baby. The chipmunk sped across the driveway and under Randy's truck. From where I was standing, I could see that he gotten up on the wheel.
"He's up in the truck," I said.
Randy took off his cap and threw it at Gabriel, who scurried out from under the truck and sat a ways off, watching Randy.
Our black tom, Rocky, hearing the ruckus, came to investigate.
"Get someplace safe, little guy," Randy said as he moved away from the truck.
A couple of minutes later, we heard a commotion near the truck.
"Oh, no," Randy said. "Rocky's got him."
"Rocky!" I said. "Drop it!"
The cat came from beneath the truck, carrying the little chipmunk in his mouth.
Randy charged toward Rocky, who looked up in surprise -- and dropped the chipmunk.
The little guy scurried toward the rock flower bed, with Rocky in hot pursuit and Randy right on Rocky's heels. For a tense couple of moments, man, cat and chipmunk engaged in a dance that would have been funny if it had not been a matter of life and death.
Finally the little chipmunk scurried up one of the jack pines. Gabriel, who had initially found the chipmunk and brought him up to the yard, stayed well out of the way.
"Leave him alone, Rocky," Randy said.
The big black tom, realizing that the chipmunk was now far out of his reach, sat on the ground, looking upward.
"It's just a baby, Rocky," I said. "We don't have that many around here."
In times past, we used to have many chipmunks running around. Now we hardly ever see one. And it's not just around the yard here, either. It used to be whenever I walked up the dirt road or rode a horse up the dirt road, which is about a mile up to the corner, I would hear chipmunks scurrying and scolding and chattering all along the way. Now I hardly ever hear them. I don't know what has happened to the chipmunk population around here. But clearly, the population is way down.
I thought the matter of the baby chipmunk was resolved -- until I was out in the backyard Saturday morning. Rocky's sister, Juliette, who spends much of her time outside, was in the backyard, too. Four years ago, the two kittens fell out of the nest in the barn when they were a day old, and I brought them up to the house to take care of them. I didn't know where the nest was, but even if I did, I figured if I put them back, the old mother cat, who is a cranky old thing, might not have wanted to take care of them after we had handled them and then disturbed the nest putting them back.
Anyway, Juliette was out in the yard Saturday morning, when all of a sudden I heard a tremendous amount of squeaking over by the jack pine.
Juliette had the baby chipmunk in her mouth.
"Drop him, Juliette!" I cried, hurrying across the driveway.
Juliette looked up at me -- and dropped the chipmunk.
The little fellow scampered toward the jack pine again, with Juliette right on his heels.
"Leave him alone, Juliette! He's just a baby," I said.
The poor little chipmunk. He made it up the tree trunk about two feet four different times, and each time, Juliette would jump up and grab him. Finally I was able to get a hold of Juliette for just long enough to allow the chipmunk to climb all the way up into the tree. Once he got up toward the top, he sat and scolded. And scolded. And scolded some more.
I went back in the house but kept looking out the window from time to time. Juliette continued to sit under the jack pine and look up to the top. Eventually, when I looked outside, Juliette was getting a drink from the water dish.
The baby chipmunk was a lucky little fellow once again. For now.
I am hoping that he has learned from his experience and will stay up in the trees. It's not often a chipmunk can say that it escaped from the mouths of three different cats and lived to tell about it.
LeAnn R. Ralph
Friday, September 26, 2008, 06:26
Murphy's Law
Murphy's Law was in operation Wednesday morning. While I was feeding the horses, I decided to dump Isabelle's bucket and clean it out. She still had 3/4 of a pail of water, but there were a number of little black bugs floating around in it, not to mention a couple of spiders.
I dumped half the water on the deep purple lilac we dug up from Randy's mom and dad's yard. They have a full-grown deep purple lilac and it is beautiful. This one has been here for four years and has hardly grown at all. For one thing, it's been too dry, I think.
Anyway, I dumped half the water on the deep purple lilac that I hope will have flowers *someday* and I dumped the other half on my peonies. Or what is left of my peonies. I chopped them off with the mower a few weeks ago because they were looking so bedraggled and pathetic. I am hoping they will come back next spring.
After I dumped the water, I headed up the hill to the house to the faucet out back. I cleaned out the pail and dumped the rinse water on my other 'little' lilac planted by the graves of Lady, Tiger Paw Thompson, Nightshade, Guinevere, Winifred, Duke and Simon Peter. The lilac by the faucet is not so little anymore, and I am proud of the way it has grown and thrived.
When the bucket was clean, I put it under the faucet to fill it with fresh, cold water for Isabelle. I turned off the faucet when the bucket was full. And wouldn't you know it -- just as I finished turning off the faucet, a spider dropped from the faucet right into Isabelle's pail of fresh water.
Jeepers. That's why I cleaned out her bucket in the first place was because of bugs! Her bucket stayed bug-free for, let's see, all of a second and a half. It was as if the spider, albeit a tiny one, was just waiting for me to shut off the water.
We finally got some rain. It was so hot and humid on Tuesday. The high was 86 degrees. The sky clouded over completely by 5 p.m. Randy checked the weather radar on the Internet, and there was a line of rain moving east from the Twin Cities. It rained for a brief period while we were feeding the horses.
We turned on the television, and weather forecast said it would be raining more later in the evening. Since the bulk of the rain had not yet reached us, we took Pixie for a walk. She enjoyed herself, snooping along the edge of the road and sniffing all kinds of different smells.
By the time we were headed back, the sky to west and north looked very dark. It was about 7 p.m. when we returned, and it was not long until sunset. Just after we got back into the house, it started to rain quite hard. Periodically for the rest of the evening, it rained in hard showers.
By morning, according to the water in Charlie's dog dish, which we have left sitting on the ramp, neither of us has the heart to move it, it appears that it rained about 3/4 of a inch. Not a terrific amount, but more rain than we've had in quite a while.
I wanted to get Isabelle out and work with her Tuesday, but the rain was too close. She hates getting wet and at the first little sprinkle will run for her shelter where she stays until it stops raining. About the only time she has been outside in the rain was when we got that very large hail earlier in the summer. I would imagine it was too noisy in her shelter then. What a dilemma for Isabelle. Wet outside but noisy inside.
LeAnn R. Ralph
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