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   For a number of years, we owned a Kawasaki Mule side-by-side. A four-wheel drive vehicle is handy to have around the farm, and we found many uses for it. When not in use, it was parked either in front of the house or among the hickory trees up by the little storage shed. During most of the year, we left it in front of the house where it would be handy as it was used frequently. During the winter, when we knew it would be used less, we parked among the hickory trees to be out of the way. I never thought about the possibility of chipmunks using the Mule for storage if not moved frequently. One day, after the Mule had been sitting idle for a couple of weeks, when I started it, it made a terrible grinding noise. With my superior mechanical abilities, I finally determined, the housing around the clutch was filled with hickory nuts. The clutch assembly and drive belt have a plastic cover protecting the working from twigs, weeds, mud and other things that should not go through a clutch. This housing also has a vent hole to allow heat to escape and chipmunks to haul in hickory nuts for storage. When I finally got the cover off, I found the housing would hold almost a gallon of hickory nuts. I cleaned them out and never gave the situation another thought until a couple of years later when I did the same thing. It is a colossal pain to get the nuts out and a person would think they would remember not to do it again. Such is not the case. We now park the side-by-side near the house all year round.

   This year during deer season, our friend Pat brought his side-by-side, Scout, to the house after a long day of deer hunting. It was getting dark and cold by the time everyone was leaving so he asked if he could leave it and pick it up another day. I did not mind and told him to just park it out of the way, so nobody backed into it. He drove into the edge of the hickory timber by the storage shed and I never gave it another thought. A couple of weeks later when he came to pick up Scout, it made a terrible grinding noise when it started. It too had been sabotaged by the chipmunks. Though an entirely different brand, Scout has a very similar clutch housing to the Mule, complete with ample hickory nut storage and a nicely placed vent hole for easy chipmunk access. Removal and cleaning the nuts out was also very similar to the Mule. Hard to reach bolts and tight corners made it just as much of a pain on Scout as it was in the Mule.

   Hopefully I have learned my lesson not to park or have anyone else park in the out of the way spot among the hickory trees. I do not know how much work it is to get all those hickory nuts inside a machine, but I know it is a lot of work to get them out. Apparently, chipmunks think anything sitting nearby is a perfect winter storage area. Our only recourse is to remove the temptation and park elsewhere.

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