Chipmunks

I love chipmunks. They are very cool animals. Indeed my favourite Disney characters are probably Chip and Dale. However I have come to realise that the holes in my garden that are multiplying faster each night are probably Chip and Dale's long lost relatives.

Each day/night/whenever Im not looking, they make a new hole. Recently they are burrowing right under a downspout/drainpipe and although I'm sure millions of years of evolution has taught them to design their burrows for good drainage they are unhappy at the recent rainfall and digging a literal perforation around my house that I'm worried will one day simply collapse in to. Ive tried different methods to move them on. Someone suggested pepper to me - this may work well in a Disney cartoon but not so well outside of this. After turning the leaf blower on the holes to see if I could pop them out like circus human cannon balls and realised the echo I heard meant the burrow was as large a Welsh coal mine - I prefer to fill up the holes behind them and let them migrate to a suitable location further along the garden.

Unfortunately a Chipmunks mind doesnt work like that of my own as they have either short term memory loss or just dont give a toot. A less laid back person may think they are conspiring against him ;) They re-burrow, scatter unlogically or simply as one did, break in to my well sealed crawl space to start a family. Brilliant. I have had a brief glimpse now of what the UK govenment is up against with the travelling gypsy population.

Now I have the unenviable job of ensuring that all the Chipmunk family under my house is outside the house when I reseal the airvents with reinforced Chipmunk gates. Watch this space!