Backyard sniping and neighborhood diplomacy

[.PsychoMerc.]

Chapter 1 : The Gathering Storm.

The story begins about 2 years ago when figured I would plant a pepper garden. Being I like to cook all kinds of spicy hot food, I decided to try my hand at pepper growing. And then set about to find the hottest varieties to plant in my own corner of heaven...the good old back yard in my lil neighborhood. Because I rent the landlord wasn't real thrilled about me digging up the lawn. But not too much fuss was put up I suppose because he figured it was better than having all my buddies park their harleys on the lawn every weekend like last summer.

So i set to task of planting a garden full of "burn twice" peppers. (burn going down and coming out) A week or so passed and I noticed some sort of rodent was burrowing holes, trenches, and building bunkers amongst my peppers! The next morning on my way out the door to work i spied the intruder...The North American Chipmunk (dedicus obnoxuis holeicus diggin bastardcus). So I dropped my briefcase, grabbed a rock and gave chase to the lil’ SOB. He escaped under the concrete slab by the basement door...the rock missed it's mark and 2 of my pepper plants caught friendly fire.

The next morning there were not 1, but 3....it was apparent there was an invasion in progress and I had zips in the wire. I figured, well I’ll just give them something else to mess with besides my garden. I proceeded to buy a squirrel feeder, and loaded it up with corn and sunflower seeds. This attracted quite a bevy of wildlife, blue jays, big gray squirrels, cardinals, orioles, black birds, a hawk, and a black bear. (which surprised my nextdoor neighbor’s kid walking the pet schitzu one night, they were a tad upset at me continuing to fill the feeder everyday, but heck, I had my own agenda). But the chipmunks ignored the plethora of easy grub, and chose to dig my plants up instead. Every morning I’d see one or more of them running out of the garden as I left for work.

So as time passed, the chipmuks continued to wreak havoc in the garden, usually with me in pursuit with a stick. (my rock throwing technique still needed work). However I found the squirrels to be pretty cool. One got chummy enough to start taking peanuts from me by hand, and then teaspoons full of peanut butter. Which lead to him waiting by the backdoor for me every morning. Once he tried to jump in the car with me when I was leaving for work, and eventually one day I had the back door propped open while bringing in groceries….so he decided to come inside the house for a look around. Here I am loading the fridge from shopping bags, and I hear a bag rustling and something fall on the floor. I figure ****, what the hell dropped. I turn around and look at the island in the middle of the kitchen, and “Peanut Pinoche” as he became to be known (I named him after the Brazilian dictator Agusto Pinoche)..pops his head up out of a shopping bag, and gives me the look of “Hey where’s my peanuts?” He then jumped down and look a casual stroll from the kitchen, through the dining room, living room, and then walked back outside and waited on the steps. He got his rations from me and split.

At this point I have allies…the squirrels..they dig me. My next door neighbors..well,they were like the swiss, they were staying neutral in the matter for the most part. But they were opposed to the squirrels getting supplies from me which wound up buried in their flowerbeds. The battle lines were drawn. The chipmunks were a communist guerilla insurrection that was going to obviously have to be put down with brute force. They continued to dig, tunnel, uproot plants….and their numbers were growing. Some of them I saw now scurrying away didn’t look like the original Chipmunk-Cong. These ones were larger, more cunning and stealthy. I suspected they were now being re-enforced by Chipmunk regulars from the north.

Chapter 2 : The Call To Arms

Now a full month into the insurrection, I took a look at the armory to see what I had at my disposal. CAR15, HK93, Colt 45 Auto, HK USP 40, Benelli SuperM1-90 12 Ga., Berretta .40, Scoped 7.62 Remington,…..all too powerful and too loud for the current rules of engagement. I’d have hated trying to explain to the local police how a 5.56mm fired at a 4 inch long rodent ricocheted and took out my neighbor’s car windows.

So off I go to where all elite backyard assassins shop…. Kmart. Upon my arrival I first considered chemical warfare. But Poison wasn’t going to do….a squirrel might get some friendly fire out of that deal. I managed to find a nice Crossman .177 pump action pellet gun with a scope in the sporting goods section. Not bad for $40 bucks I figure, as much as I’d spent for tying a good one on at the local gin mill. Over the next few days I practice with some paper targets and tin cans. All the while working on getting the scope zeroed in at set distances. It seemed about 25 feet was going to be the optimum distance for point targets to get the minute of accuracy I needed, just in case I had to do a quick follow up shot should I miss with the first. (Yes sometimes BMC misses)

Chapter 3 : In Country - Sniper In The Tall Grass

Recon of the movements of the NCC’s (Northern Communist Chipmunks), showed that they were using the underside of my next door neighbor’s porch as a launching point for operations. This was evident by my having chased them across the DMZ (De-Militarized Zone, = the side yard between my house and the neighbor’s) on several recent occasions. I have also noted they were now making incursions into the squirrel’s supply zone, the feeder out back under the big maple tree.

A bright Saturday morning I look out back to see some blue jays, and 3 to 4 large gray squirrels grabbing their days rations beneath the maple tree. Then…a chirp…but it’s not a bird chirp…this chirp was like when the VC would blow a whistle to start an attack….that chirp was a NCC for sure. I go to the cellar door way and grab the scoped .177 and load up a single pellet…one shot…one kill. Exiting the front door, I slowly make my way around back and set up behind the rain gutter. As I scope the area to my front the 3 to 4 gray squirrels are milling about. Then he appears…a lone chimpmunk. He tries not to arouse suspicion and cautiously blends in amongst the squirrels. Patiently I wait for the shot, but he’s too close to a squirrel. He then slowly makes his way to a point where he is surrounded by squirrels on all sides, with about a 1 foot gap between them. We have a green light, it’s a go! I aim for the head and let a .177 fly. It finds it’s mark, striking him in the noggin. He spins violently on impact and twitches a moment before all goes dark for him. The squirrels don’t know what to make of what has just happened. They freeze in place, hair on their backs standing strait up, tails flicking wildly as if to signal each other, “Umm dude, something is really wrong here, did you just see that?” As I rise from my hide, the squirrels, now a bit edgy after seeing a fellow lower on the evolutionary chain than them buy the farm, head for high ground. I didn’t have a death card to drop as a calling card for other NCC’s to let them know I meant business. So I scooped him up and chucked him on the grass cutting pile down the edge of the yard,another known chipmunk gathering point.

Chapter 4: The Fall Of The NCC’s

As the next few weeks pass, more NCC’s fall victim to the Crossman .177. From the garden, to the knothole at the bottom of the oak, to the bushes behind the grass cutting pile. Pow, zing, thwap…the .177 pellets continue to find their mark upon the unsuspecting chipmunks. Like a house of cards the whole stinking insurrection begins to fall apart. As the body count grows, the digging in my garden subsides, and eventually ceases all together. The Marines have landed and the situation is well in hand! The garden has been liberated! The 2 month battle had claimed 23 chipmunks, with no friendly casualties, except for my 2 pepper plants that took friendly fire from a wayward rock near the start of hostilities.

My neighbors who were pretty used to seeing me cart high power hardware to and from the house, were initially alarmed at the sight of me slowly stalking the yard with the .177. As time passed they became accustomed to the Crossman’s report, and then just figured I was just one of those gardeners not to be messed with. This gained me a following of local youths in the neighborhood who now frequently would knock on my door, or stop to see me outside. The question always being could they shoot some of them for me, and how high was the body count currently? Being born at night, and not last night, I declined to put my .177 in their hands. State law says you need to be 18 years old to have a pellet gun, and they were probably working as agents for the chipmunks to get me tossed in the slammer. (except for little kid with the red bike who told me, “Your like really cool, or something.” I think he was legit.)

For the rest of that summer, and this summer past, no chipmunks were to be seen in my end of the neighborhood. Then last week….a lone chipmunk scout was spotted. The first sighting in 2 years. My neighbor being of pacifistic nature offered me a small “live trap” to capture the chipmunk, rather than turn his head into a canoe, like so many before. So in exchange for better relations with the neighbor, I figured it was time to be diplomatic and play politics. I set the trap outside a tunnel he had dug by the cellar door. And sure enough there he was in the trap the next day. This got him a one way ticket across town over the other side of 2 interstate highways.

w00t

[Doggie]

um.. dude u have posted this in the funny farm.. refrain from double posting dude..

[.PsychoMerc.]

I know, but the Funny Farm is waaay down yonder

So I posted it here, since this is more visible to those with tiny monitors.

w00t

[Aaron]

Moved to Funny Farm, do not double post

[.PsychoMerc.]

noone cares :cry: