What’s in Your Burner?

If my father were still alive, he would say: “Your yard is lousy with chipmunks, Mitch.”

The expression “lousy with” was his way of saying you are being overrun.

I really do have a lot of chipmunks hanging around my house this year.  I have never seen so many, actually.  At times, I may see three or four of them at once.

The chipmunks love streaking along the brick ledge of my house and scampering along the rails of the surrounding post-and-pole fence.  Several of them hang around my back deck.  A couple weeks ago, when I dried my clothes, the dryer huffed a chipmunk nest out from the dryer vent.  That chipmunk had figured out how to open the flap and get inside the vent.

More recently, I spotted a chipmunk with nest-building material in its mouth hanging around my barbeque grill.  It occurred to me that I might want to inspect the grill.  Posted today is a photograph of a chipmunk nest I found in the burner affixed to the side of my grill.

I never use the burner.

I left the nest as I found it and covered the grill again.  I can live with the nest in the burner.  I am not sure if the chipmunk can deal with me using the other half of the grill from time to time.

Chipmunk Nest

—Mitchell Hegman