Feeding a Chipmunk

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.