Alvin's baaaack!!

Some of you might remember our story about chipmunks a while back (http://rustyandrachel.blogspot.com/2009/03/adventures-with-alvin-and-friends.html).

Well, it turned out that the little chipmunk had tunneled through one of our old pipes that was no longer working...He found the opening outside and slid down the pipe and chewed through the "great stuff" we had put inside of it to keep the spiders out (on the house side of the pipe). So, once we had found his entry point, we tried covering it with a small rock, which kept being moved over to the side by Alvin. We then graduated to a brick to cover his entry point, and little Alvin was not strong enough to move it to get back into our basement (whew!). But, never has anyone said that chipmunks are creatures that easily give up! Little Alvin then went on to dig several tunnels around the foundation of our house to try to find another entry point into our cushy, swanky (at least to a chipmunk) basement. Tunnels next to your foundation are no good. In fact, by googling, I learned that chipmunks actually do a ton of damage because the tunnels loosen the earth supporting your foundation and can cause the foundation to crack. Bad news.

We were happy to have our French drain built (1. for its amazing water-proofing properties and 2.) because we hoped it would confuse Alvin and make him try another house. Sadly, this was not the case. We found the first tell-tale tunnel about a week ago and were so sad that Alvin decided to stay with us. But, Rusty, my fearless husband, decided that he would trap Alvin and we would relocate him (yes, it was a humane trap, not a rat squashing trap that some websites recommended). So...build we did. We even found out Alvin's favorite foods, so we could treat him to a nice farewell dinner. Here is the trap loaded up with some yummy sunflower seeds and peanut butter. Yummy, huh? This is the back of the trap. It allows sunlight to come through so that Alvin didn't think that he was running into a trap. Cleaver, huh? That Rusty, he's pretty smart.We placed the trap outside of the opening to Alvin's favorite tunnel and waited. On Sunday after church we went out back to check on things and this is how we found the trap (Well, it wasn't here on the concrete, but you get the idea):

You guessed it! We had caught him! Here he is. He was pretty scared, but his tummy was full. He really enjoyed his farewell dinner.

So into the trunk of the car he went. He was secured into place by a brick so that his trap didn't tumble everywhere as we drove. I know, we sure are sweet to our wildlife, right?
Here is Rusty with Alvin. We decided to let him go on the Seminary campus. I know what you are thinking...just getting rid of him by unloading him on other people is not nice. But, good news, Rusty had seen tons of chipmunks on campus, so we figured that Alvin would be among friends. Again, nice, huh?

In conclusion, we hope you enjoy this little video of us releasing him into the wild...er, I mean, the Seminary! (For some reason, I'm not sure exactly how to do the video, but on my computer I have to mess with the triangle thingy that moves as the video plays. I move it a little and then the video starts for me...I hope it works for you!)