10/15/2006 Squirrels and Domes Do Not Mix

My dome is sinking. The cause is squirrel damage. Seriously.
Last year this squirrel decided to make his home underneath my dome. When I built the dome, I raised it up about 4 feet by making walls out of big 6x6 beams and filling them with dirt. I packed it down tight with a tamping machine and then poured about 4 inches of concrete to make the floor. Well, the squirrel dug under one of the walls (which were buried about 1 foot deep) and then proceeded to construct his own private little apartment complex for squirrels down there. He was a lone rodent but he must have expected to raise quite a large family, because every day I would come out to find huge quantities of dirt scooped out from under the dome.
Now, I am generally an animal lover. My mom's a wildlife artist and I was raised to appreciate the wonderous beauty of the animal kingdom. I've had pets of more species than I can count. However, this squirrel quickly became my arch enemy. Each day I would try a new way of stopping his encroachment, and each day he would make a fool of me. I tried a live trap, only to have the sad result of trapping a bird who wound up dying of fright. My squirrel nightmare became the topic of humorous exchanges with a few friends during our regular lunch meetings. If you've ever seen Bill Murray in Caddyshack, and his battle with the groundhog, you know what I was dealing with.
The bitter end to this saga was that I found a squirrel bomb at a hardware store and basically terminated his tunnel terror with poisonous gas. I hated to do it but I could not stand by and watch while he single-pawedly ruined my observatory.
Well, maybe it wasn't the bitter end. Because today I noticed that the concrete under my dome has experienced a significant settling, probably as much as 4-6 inches in some places. That crazy squirrel removed so much dirt that the whole thing is collapsing!