Chipmunks and Chips

We were just watching the chipmunks. They are quite busy this morning. When we laid the front walk and had the new driveway poured, we made two underground conduits with PVC piping. One goes from the water faucet on the outside of the house to the opposite side of the garage by going under the driveway. It is so we can bring the garden hose to the other side of the driveway without laying it across the driveway where we might drive over it. We would drive over it because it seems like such a nuisance to pull it out of the way so we can drive the car into the garage. The second conduit goes out to the end of the front walk just in case we ever put in an outside light; it will take the electrical service out to the light.

The chipmunks have discovered the pipes and like to run in and out of them. We are fairly certain they have a nest in them. They must think about how fortunate they are to have such wonderful tunnels that they do not have to constantly maintain. To this point, they have not created any problems so we leave them. We are careful now to not leave the large garage door open. That is how we think they got into the house during June.

This morning they chased each other back and forth and through the garden, up and down the retaining wall, and in and out of the pipes. At first we could see only one of them and watched it as it explored the wood chip mulch I put in the garden yesterday. Then a robin swooped down; it appeared to be chasing a second chipmunk. After the bird left, the chipmunks looked like they were having a good time chasing each other.

Over the past weekend we had a storm with some extremely high winds. We were not aware of it until yesterday but the wind must have blown down part of a large maple tree in the park behind our house. To tell the truth, the view outside the kitchen window did look a little more open but we never put it all together.

The city workers came yesterday to clean up the tree. Roger and Ben asked for the wood which they were only too happy to let us have. They were just going to run it through the mulcher. We could easily have wood for our ceramic oven during the winter. Roger and Ben used Ben's chain saws to cut it into useable lengths.

When they were done, I raked up the chips and used them to much the garden in the front of the house. Yesterday we were extremely industrious.