Inside the Perimeter !

Its cooling down now, and a few leaves are starting to turn.  Time for an annual experience that never fails to startle me.

I step into our attached garage and come face to snout with a chipmunk.

Sometimes they just scurry off.  Other times, trapped by the geometry of our back porch, they have no escape and leap right at me.  Its kind of alarming, even if my adversary only weighs a few ounces.

You just did not see it coming.  You figure:  Indoors: me  Outdoors: nature.  But once a year, when they are looking for a nice warm new home, they breach the perimeter defenses.

And always in the same way.  There is an area down near the ground where the little vermin can crawl up under the boards and gnaw on insulation until they come out inside the garage, right where the drywall meets the foundation.

Once there is a sighting it is easy to just go over and check.

Yep.  Shredded insulation.

And...there's where they broke through.

I have it down pat now, just take some chicken wire, wad it up and jam it in there.  It usually ends the incursions for the season.

But it bothers me on some level.  It reminds me of the scene in the movie Aliens where the Colonial Marines are tracking motion signals that can't possibly be right.  "They're inside the perimeter....They're inside the room!!"  Eventually the troopers have a horrid insight and lift up the roof tiles to see ravenous, drooling, inhuman monsters approaching...

Yeh, pretty much the same scenario.