It's tits up for Chippy

I've been a camper as long as I can remember. Must be in my DNA, probably as a result of those years my folks spent in a refugee camp in Denmark. So at some profoundly deep level, I have a craving to sleep, at least once in awhile, in a tent.

Over the years I've pitched my tent in every province except Newfoundland, and that's on the to-do list. I've worked with a lot of Newfoundlanders in the course of my various careers, and they really are the salt of the earth. Come from Away could not have happened anywhere else.

One of the constants no matter where you pitch your tent is that inevitably you're going to make friends with one or more chipmunks. And just as inevitably, you'll call her "Chippy." If there's more than one, the others will be known as "other Chippy."

Kind of like in the stories Newfoundlanders will tell; every random guy in the narrative is officially known as "Buddy."

Subsequent random guys are all "other Buddy." As in "I got Buddy to move his traps outta my zone and then other Buddy figures he's gonna drop his there."

But back to the chipmunks and away from the quaint regionalisms that make this country so interesting. Depending on the park, the chipmunks will already be more or less domesticated. They'll be eating those peanuts out of your hand in no time.

Out here at Falling Downs, they're a little more skeptical, but we had one particular chipmunk who was becoming a regular, and I thought eventually he'll be taking those peanuts from me. And I believe he would have, if Doublewide hadn't interjected herself in the relationship.

Doublewide is the number two cat around here, and she's on the heavy side. She's not the cat you see in your mind's eye when you picture a cat ready to pounce.

She likes to enjoy the evening air with me out here on the stoop, where we'll spend hours enjoying the antics of the birds and Chippy. Unbeknownst to me, Doublewide was being seduced by primal urges as we sat there encouraging Chippy to come ever closer...


Longish story short, we left Doublewide out one night last week, and in the morning we found the remains of Chippy on our doorstep.