Chipping Around, but not at golf :-)

Chipmunk Hotel:

  

Ian and me grand standing with finished Munk City Hotel ready to haul. Four Chipmunks were corralled and plunked in through the hinged top. Hope Ian can train them like his dad did with Steamboat.

The second week in June, I was logged-in for trail riding but when my Grandson Ian called about coming to our house and playing golf along with some serious fishing, I changed my plans and Ian came over to Coralville. Once he learned that Gpa was rounding up chipmunks, Ian wanted to take some home. His dad Chris had a pet chipmunk Steamboat when he was young so Ian decided that would be a good idea for him too. Therefore, time allotted for golf, fishing and computer games was directed toward designing and building a three by two and half foot tall cage. When I made Chris’ cage, I jerry-rigged a rustic end table into a cage by closing in sides and end with wire mesh left over from my days on the farm. The 2013 version of that cage was much more robust. Although it took some doing to keep Ian involved, he helped with about 30-40% of the project. I knew it would be tight trying to fit the finished product in the car but it turned out to be impossible. Each day we caught a chipmunk and kept them corralled in the wheelie bin (that’s what my friend Boris [See Wabash Trace Posting] from Australia fondly called garbage cans with wheels).  Because we could not get the cage in the car, we rented a U-Haul trailer to cart the cage 110 miles to Ian’s house. After attaching the trailer, loading the cage and tricking four chipmunks into the cage, the impoundment was pulled to Runnells. One little fellow died from all the excitement but the other three are scooting around in the cage foot loose and fancy free. Now it's time to hit the trails.