Death in the Garden

August 20, 2013

Non-dead chipmunk tomatoes

I don't know how the death occurred but I found a corpse in my garden. The striped body caught my eye as I was admiring my melon/tomato patch and really startled me. My first reaction was "danger, poisonous snake stripes"  but I realized quickly that it was one  dead chipmunk.  The good sized chippy was face down and spread eagled nestled in the base of a tomato plant. Out of respect for the dead, I do not include a picture.   Plus, I did not want to get close enough to the dead animal to take a picture.

Don't know what to do with disposal of the body because everything I can think of requires me to get close to the dead chipmunk. Because of the location of the body, disposal requires some adroit movements with a shovel or other big implement that could damage the tomato plants just as the tomatoes are looking close to eating; asking Ed to dispose of the body would probably make both of us  unhappy. Me, because the likelihood of damage, Ed because he is doing me a favor and the likelihood that I will yell at him.
 I did mention the issue of the dead chipmunk to Ed and suggested that he could help me out but he was non-responsive.

Where are the carrion eaters when one has carrion?