03/07/2026
For those of us who like nature.
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/199vbt6MPn/
You haven't seen me since October. You assumed I was gone.
I've been three feet underground the whole time.
I'm a chipmunk. And for the past five months I've been in torpor — a controlled shutdown where my heart rate drops from hundreds of beats per minute to a handful. Body temperature drops to match the soil around me. Breathing slows to almost nothing.
Every few weeks I woke up just enough to eat from the food stash I buried in October and then dropped back under.
My burrow is more organized than it looks from the surface. A sleeping chamber, a food chamber, a separate bathroom chamber, all connected by tunnels I dug myself. I stockpiled pounds of seeds, nuts, and grain last fall. I've been slowly eating through that supply all winter without ever coming above ground.
This week the soil warmed enough to trigger my metabolism back on. Heart rate climbing. Body warming. I'm thinner. I'm hungry. And the first thing I did was check whether my food stash survived.
The second thing — making sure nobody moved into my burrow while I was under.
I'll be manic for the next few weeks. Filling cheeks. Sprinting across your patio. Stuffing everything I find underground. Five months of deficit to make up.
🐿️ If you see chipmunks suddenly reappearing:
- They're not new arrivals — they've been beneath your yard since October
- The frantic stuffing behavior is restocking after a long winter draw-down, not hoarding for fun
- If you have bird feeders, fallen seed on the ground is their first easy meal after emergence
- Their burrow entrances are small clean holes with no dirt pile around them — they carry the excavated soil away in their cheeks to hide the location
The chipmunk that vanished in October didn't leave. It just went deeper than you thought 🌿