Chip and Dale they are not!

This is only the second year we've had chipmunks in our garden. Cute little devils.

One busies itself with snatching seeds when they drop from my neighbor-to-the-south's birdfeeder, running across my yard and diving into the shrubbery on the neighbor-to-the-north's yard. There's another who's dug a hole until the cement pad my garage sits on.

My husband, Roger and I were sitting eating dinner on the patio and watching the comings and goings. I'm the type of person who observes, Roger is the type of person who grabs a book and researches.

So he goes into the house and brings out a book on animal behavior. He reads that chipmunks make burrows that can by up to several feet in diameter and hide gobs of food for the winter. Hmmm. Does this mean our garage floor will cave in at some point? Not good.

But then he reads that they also eat slugs and other nasty critters in the garden. What nice, little creatures!

They can stay as long as they want. They have a smorgasbord going on out in our garden with all the hostas. Let them at the juicy slugs that I have been trying to get rid of by drowning in beer!

Some mornings I open up the back door and standing there, looking up, ready to dash is my charming garden mascot. I make some ridiculous noises at the chipmunk trying to be friendly. He or she looks at me like I'm insane, then bolts, tail in the air, bounding down the steps like an animated cartoon character.

My yard has become like a scene from a Disney film: sparrows chirping, doves cooing, and chipmunks, with their little cheeks filled with seeds, scooting by. They are very busy little characters and I assume they are gobbling up lots of slugs between trips to the birdfeeder.

But no.

The slugs are out of control. They have eaten huge holes in my hostas and my rhubarb. They never touched the rhubard before.

Where are those chipmunks?

My cherry tomatoes are just starting to set after our long cold spring. And yesterday I was out in the garden admiring the clusters of green fruit on the Sungold tomatoes, calculating how long before I can pop them into my mouth. They are sweet as candy and I usually eat them out in the garden, still warm from the sun.

Tonight, I went out to look at them again and half the tomatoes are gone, just the stems are left. Roger says, "tomato horn worms." I doubt it's horn worms because they usually eat the leaves, leaving the left stems behind. We have raccoons but there is no sign of any tearing of of the plant that clumsy coons would manage trying to get at the green tomatoes.

My suspicion?

Cute, little, light-footed devils dancing out on the branches to pluck the still green fruit.

Grrr!

I wouldn't mind losing a few tomatoes to a chipmunk that eats its weight in slugs everyday. But this is too much!