Just a couple notes. I still need to do a couple things to have the house ready for me to leave it and a couple last minute things to pack. There are two new irises open. I can only hope that Dan will take pictures of them.

It lightly rained all day yesterday. It was extremely welcome as we are so dry. Today looks like a repeat and that is also welcome. The weather forecast indicates we could have severe thunderstorms on Monday.

Yesterday a chipmunk got into the house. Mooch killed it. We think it got in through our drainage system. Our soil is heavy clay; when it becomes saturated, there is no place for the water to go but into the basement. We have a system of dry wells into which we channel the water and pump it out. This keeps the basement dry. Right now we do not have to worry about that as we have had below normal snow during the winter and virtually no rain this spring. We think that the chipmunk walked in through the drain tiles. Yesterday we blocked the openings fo the drain tiles with hardware cloth covers. The hardware cloth is an extremely course and heavy screen. The water will easily pass through it while it prevents little creatures from getting into the dry wells.

Outside the house we have a couple conduits made of PVC piping. The conduits are to enable us to pass the garden hose underneath the driveway and to bring electric cords out into the yard. The chipmunks have discovered them. I am not certain if they just use them as underground passages and hiding places or if they actually nest in them. These conduits have no access to the interior of the house but if chipmunks know about them and how to use them, I would imagine that they could figure out the drain tiles.