Tag Archives: Plot Twists

The Chipmunk Horrors of Honey Lane

Posted on by under Animal Encounters, Nature, Plot Twists, Summer Reflections, writing

If you are anything like me, you might be of the opinion that chipmunks are very cute. They are perfectly striped critters, with amusing antics. They’re small and darling enough to hold in your hand if you could. When gathering seeds, they can stuff their chunky little cheeks full with nearly their body weight right in their mouths. It’s also fun to watch them in early summer, quickly darting and zigzagging, chasing each other around in early summer.

(Plot twist: the cute transformed to horror.)

These cute little creatures just chased me out of my backyard, into our house.

I find it very unsettling when normally wild creatures, who really ought to be terrified of giant humans hundreds times their size, come within a few feet of said giant, weave around you faster than you can follow them, and even charge at you, running along the fence tops or pausing in the bushes next to you. You saw it go into and climb the bush, watched the branches move, and then freeze at eye-level, your eye-level.

There used to be squirrels in our backyard. We had lots. There were your typical Battle Creek black squirrels as well as the more common grays or browns. But since the 20 or so chipmunks have invaded this year, I’ve not seen a single squirrel here…nor a single strawberry from our ample-leafed patch.

Black squirrels used to be the most aggressive rodents in our backyard animal menagerie; well, and blue jays on the feathered front. That distinction has now been passed on to those cute little chipmunk horrors. At least the squirrels and birds scattered whenever I went outside.

My concerned husband went online to identify humane ways to rid one of chipmunks. Our jar of fox urine (fox = natural predator to rodents) arrived after a couple of days. I sprinkled the elixir around their most popular haunts, as well as near the entrance to their holes in the ground. This appeared to do the trick. For two days. Until it rained and washed away our magic potion. So I redid the ritual, naturally singing softly, “What does a Fox Say?” It wasn’t forecast to rain that night, but it did. Chipmunks! Again!

Further scientific observation made me realize I’d only spotted one or two of these furry little things in our front yard. The difference? Let’s just say that for the next week or two I hope our birdies are not offended, but smart enough to find food elsewhere. After all, it’s partly their fault. You see, our feathered friends like to share the wealth, or they are messy eaters, or perhaps picky eaters, dropping the seeds they do not like. Whatever the case, this scientist will not feed wildlife of any sort for a while. Now to think about how to protect my fruits and veggies growing back there when the little chimpies search for other food.

Wish me luck.

Plot Twists from Animal Encounters, Part 4 – Iowa

Posted on by under Animal Encounters, Nature, Plot Twists, Reflections, writing

In the continuing saga of memories of Carlson animal encounters, and how these are never sought after, but add an interesting twist to our average, ordinary, normal lives, which is exactly how we writers need to think about plot twists in our stories…here is another Carlson true animal encounter story.

When I was five months pregnant, in August, with my first child we had moved to a church in Fort Dodge, Iowa. We moved into the church-owned manse (parsonage, rectory) because we didn’t have the money to afford a down payment on a house of our own, and weren’t familiar enough with the town to know apartment areas. They’d been trying to sell the house for over two years with hardly a nibble or even low bid.

One of our first nights in the manse, while Jeff was off to a night meeting at his new job, I attempted to get the house all ready for the new baby. I’d been working for two or more hours and realized I was exhausted. I sat down on the couch in the library area, and rested my head back. And a bat flapped to within inches of my head, darting off into the living room.

I was concerned about rabies and being pregnant. I was so new to town that I didn’t have any new churches phone numbers, and since this was pre-cell phone era, I couldn’t call or text my hubby. I bolted next-door to my new neighbors to wait for Jeff to come home. Her husband was also gone for the evening. Neither of us felt brave enough to investigate. Besides, she had a sleeping five year old she didn’t want to leave. So we waited until I saw Jeff’s headlights head down the alley and go into the garage.

I explained to Jeff what I’d experienced and we made a quick search of the house. I did not want rabies! During our search, I’d put a sleeping bag over my head and had a badminton racket in my hand to swat the invader away. My husband carried a fishing net at his side. We then did a thorough search of the house closing rooms off that we had checked. We finally thoroughly checked our own bedroom and shut the door to the hallway. We’d found nothing. Being the informed reader that he was, he had read about the nervous conditions and hysteria of pregnant ladies. He was going along with me on this bat search, but he wasn’t exactly believing me without the evidence.

It was a warm night. Our bedroom windows were open, screens in tact. We slept with just a sheet over us. About 5:30 in the morning I heard a sound of wings flap over our heads. I threw the sheet over both of our heads and screamed to Jeff, “We locked it in here with us!”

Now Jeff has never been a morning person and it took him a while to figure out why is she was over his head and why his hysterical pregnant wife was yelling at him. We carefully peeked over the sheet. There was no bat. Again, poor new husband was worried about his wife emotional state, but groggily agreed to search the room…again. This time we found it. I wasn’t hysterically crazy after all. The night creature clung inside the folds of the curtain between the curtain and the window screen.  Jeff tried to shake it loose, but it was clinging pretty tightly. We finally decided to take the screen off the window pulled the curtain over the open window where Jeff then whacked it out of the house with the badminton racket. The only place we figured it could’ve come in was down the chimney.

For good or bad, we didn’t stay in that house for much more than a month after that when we were forced to move, and after all my moving boxes had been tossed and things all ready for the baby. The church had finally, with us moving into it for that “lived-in look”, sold the house.

I often wonder if the next owners also had some bat encounters, and if they figured out how the sneaky night creatures could enter human habitation.

Plot Twists from Animal Encounters, Part 3 – SD Black Hills

Posted on by under Animal Encounters, Danger/ Stalker, Nature, Plot Twists, Reflections, Story Ideas, Writing Challenge

Plot twist are the unexpected. They are what keep the story interesting. A plot twist happens when a character is heading toward his goal when suddenly something or someone unexpectedly appears and changes that course.

Opportunities for plot twists can be observed in real life. This is a story which happened to my husband when we lived in the Black Hills of South Dakota.

He had a day off when I did not, so he decided to do some mountain biking in the Hills. (Consider this a character goal.) He drove about 45 minutes from our house, got on his bike, and started on a remote mountain trail. He had  the only car in the two-car parking spot along the side of road near the trailhead, and to his knowledge, the only human on the trail that day. Peaceful. At one point the rocky trail became quite steep, so he got off his bike and walked it upward.

A bit of background: When he was a young teen he had hunted with his father and brothers. He was used to being left alone in the forest and listening to the minutest of wilderness sounds. The slightest scratch on tree bark, the sound of moving stones or the soft crunch on pine needles would make him aware that he was not alone.

Back to grown-up Jeff, alone, walking his mountain bike up the trail…

He heard a quiet sound and stopped. He expected to discover a tree which was creaking or spot a squirrel or chipmunk. Those rodents often stop for a first moment of freeze, and then return to their tree climbing or nut searching. But nothing sounded nor caught his eye Since the scurrying had stopped he continued up the trail. He heard a noise again and turned in that direction, but still saw nothing. He was getting a little disturbed when it sounded a third time. He stopped and determined he would not move again until he could identify what made the noise. It certainly wasn’t from a single tree. Then he saw it. About fifteen feet from him. Cougar eyes peeking from behind a boulder.

Jeff’s first thought was how beautiful the animal was, and so close to him that he could see the individual whiskers. His second thought was that even though his mountain bike was between them, that he, walking alone in the hills was in the process of getting stalked by a wild, maybe hungry, certainly overpowering beast.

With this second realization came action. Jeff spun his bike around, leapt upon it, and raced down the trail towards the car. Rocks and pebbles spun out behind him as he swirled around larger boulders. Riding speedily over the rough terrain made for an awfully lot of ruckus in the normally quiet hills. He only looked back after he’d reached the vehicle and strapped the bike on the carrier in a few seconds record-time before climbing into the safety of the car. But there were no more cougar sighting. He figured the noise and the flying pebbles might have discouraged the feline.

In this real life story, our hero didn’t reach his goal of mountain hiking to the top of the hill on little-used trail. But the reason for him not reaching it makes for a great story and was an adventurous twist. A plot twist. He waited for another time to do that particular trail, and to take with him a traveling companion. The cougar’s goal was foiled once. With more human company along and support, the cougar’s goal would mostly likely fail again. Long live wise heroes!

Now as a writing challenge, go think up some plot twists you can toss in the way of your character.