We all have our
own measure of what makes us happy, the event or events in our lives that
give us the ultimate in enjoyment that can’t be topped by any other
experience. My ultimate experiences have most always come under the
subject “close encounters with wildlife.” I have had the pleasure of
holding a bat, a scorpion, a baby opossum, and a tarantula.
Since even the thought of those creatures repulse most people, I
will share with you my close encounters with chipmunks.
The first chipmunk
I ever got to know was named Friendly Chippy. He lived in Canada,
in a hole in the ground. Friendly Chippy got his name by
his enthusiastic willingness to respond to a peanut tapped on a log and
being called by his name, “Hey, Friendly Chippy!” I never knew that
chipmunks could gallop before I met Friendly Chippy. I would say that his
gait toward his peanut treat was a more like a bounding gallop, as if his
life depended on it. Friendly Chippy would take the peanut from the
human hand, very gently, with his own delicate hands. Biting away
the shell he would stuff the legume center into his cheeks. If he
was in a hurry he’d stuffed the entire peanut in his mouth, shell and
all. I saw him stuff up to three unshelled peanuts in his
mouth. Galloping back to his hole, the goods in his cheeks, he had
increased his stash for the long Canadian winter.
The following
summer I had the opportunity to again meet with Friendly Chippy. But he
had changed his name to Extremely Assertive Chippy, for he had taken on
the habit of coming over to the lawn chairs where we, the human peanut
providers sat, climbed up our legs and pilfered the peanuts we had in our
pockets. Even though this chipmunk had developed an entitlement
mentality over the winter, I still found him to be one of the most delightful
creatures I have ever met.
During that trip
to Canada I was informed that taming chipmunks is quite easy, and can be
done in a day. Well, I was able to do it in three days and this is how I
did it.
Two tree stumps,
just a few feet apart served as the chipmunk restaurant. I placed
several peanuts on each stump and left. The most difficult part of this
whole process was to get the chipmunk to find the peanuts in the first
place. The chipmunk needed to initially find the peanuts with no humans
around, so I left the area and watched from afar until a chipmunk showed
up. Once the chipmunk found the peanuts, it stuffed the peanuts in
its mouth, ran to its burrow and stashed the peanuts in its larder.
I immediately put
out a fresh batch of peanuts. By now, I had noticed that the chipmunks
were most active in the morning and evening -- they seemed to take a rest
in the middle of the afternoon. But, this chipmunk did return for
more peanuts almost right away. That’s when I made sure that I was
sitting in the vicinity. That way, I could put out more peanuts whenever
the stump was empty, and just as important, the chipmunk would get used to
my presence in the feeding area. I chose a docile activity,
reading, to pass the time. I was reading The Professor and
the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford
English Dictionary by Simon Winchester (a great book). I will
now forever think of chipmunks when I see an Oxford Dictionary.
At the first
afternoon’s reading, the chipmunk would squeak and run when he realized
that I was sitting in the lawn chair, about 10 feet from the peanuts, reading
the book. But by the middle of the second day, slowly, ever so
slowly, I could move about without scaring the chipmunk. By the end of
the second day I could stand up, walk to the tree stumps and replenish the
peanuts on one stump, while the chipmunk was gnawing the shells off the peanuts
on the other stump. This, I thought, was important, because now the
chipmunk began associating my presence with the peanuts. The human was nothing to be feared --
the human was the benefactor!
After the chipmunk
was enlightened to the fact that I was the Peanut Goddess, it was an easy
transition to hand feeding him. I could now approach him and hand
him a peanut. As I mentioned before, a chipmunk has very delicate
hands. As the chipmunk extended his tiny arms and took the peanut
from my fingers with both of his hands, I truly experienced one of the
most gratifying experiences in my life.
As fate would have
it, I could stay no longer in the wilderness area where I had my cultural
exchange with the chipmunk. I had to leave the next day. But
it was just as well, my new furry friend needed to remember how to live in
his real world, and so did I.
