New Years Parade 2021

It has been a long standing tradition at the Woodpile to gather together on New Years Day to watch the Rose Bowl Parade. Due to the pandemic the 2021 parade has been cancelled. We thought we would start off the New Year on the right paw by creating our own do-it-yourself Wood Bowl Parade. We hollowed out the underside of some logs, installed motors and wheels so they could move like parade floats. Then we spent many hours decorating the logs.

Listen up everyone. We have a lot of work to do. Lets get creative. 

 

We found a large open space to build the floats. We got the float logs lined up.

Chippy Jr. offered to help Archie with his float. They had lots of flowers to choose from.

Merry was given the honor of being the parade’s Grand Marshall.

 Spitfire, the dragonfly, designed this amazing double headed dragon float.

 Archie’s simple sunflower flora design won the Critter’s Choice prize.

Christmas Treats

For the first time in a number of years, we are snowbound at the Woodpile. I planned an outdoor socially distanced family gathering. I ordered a giant tin of dark chocolate covered Godiva sunflower seeds from Switzerland. There is a small monastery in the Alps run by chipmunk monks who make the world’s most amazing chocolates. I had to place my order back in August to get it by Christmas because they only have a limited supply.

The chocolates arrived in a big red tin about a week before Christmas. The aromas emanating from the tin filled the burrow and drove the kids crazy. They kept asking to open it early but I insisted on waiting for the big day.

It seemed like an eternity for the kids, but Christmas Day finally arrived. The family members gathered outside. I opened the tin and the cover went flying off like a champagne cork! Suffice to say the chocolates were a huge hit!

 

I announced we were skipping dinner and going straight to the deserts.
This announcement was met with loud applause and cheers!

Family members took a deep breath of the chocolate aroma before grabbing some seeds.

It took all of five minutes for us to eat down to the white paper separator of the first layer.

Chippy Jr. begged me not to post this photo of him stuffing his cheeks.

The kids thought this was most exciting Christmas ever.
They started posting "selfies" with the red tin on social media.

The chocolates were so popular they emptied the tin in less than an hour.

Thank goodness, I had thought to order two more tins. I rushed off to grab the next one.

Christmas Tree

Have you tried to get a real Christmas tree this year? Did you buy it before the stroke of midnight on Thanksgiving? If you did, congratulations, you are one of those smart folks who anticipated the great Christmas tree shortage of 2020. Today, is Saturday the 12^th of December. I spent the day trying to get a tree for the burrow. So far, I visited a dozen shops within 25 miles of the Woodpile and every last one was sold out. I even checked a secret patch of fir trees in the middle of the woods which I thought I was only one who knew about it. After trudging through snow, freezing temperatures and briars, I arrived to find a clearing in the woods. By “clearing” I mean it was clear of any trees. All I found was a pile sunflower seed shells from the family that got the last tree. They had a bonfire and roasted seeds over the open flames. It must have been a lot of fun.

The secret patch of Christmas trees deep in the woods was reduced to a pile of sunflower seed shells by the time I got there.

The frustrating part was I had made this really cool Christmas tree stand which I wanted to surprise the wife and kids with. It took hours of work to cutout and decorate. I refused to give up. I tried to come up with a brilliant and creative solution.

I found this pine branch with pine cones on the way home through the woods.
Maybe I could make a Charlie Brown Christmas tree?

 
How can I get this branch to standup and look like a tree?

I know, I will tip the stand on its side and slide the branch inside

 

 

The more I think about, the more I realize this just isn’t going to work.

 

What can I do? I called my cousin Vinnie and he droned on about exploiting some quirk of quantum mechanics … it was way too complicated. I called my old school teacher, Mrs. Spot and she lectured me on procrastination. (She had purchased her tree in October and had it cryogenically frozen to preserve its freshness). In desperation, I called my buddy Tom, a really smart human, and he patiently listened to all my troubles. He reminded me Christmas was not about trees, decorations, and gifts. It was about love, family, and one’s faith.

The next morning a small package arrived by flying squirrel overnight express. It was a plain white envelope (no return address) with a single bean inside and some instructions: “Plant in soil, water, and infuse with love and the spirit of Christmas. Wait twenty-four hours.” I followed the instructions, went to bed, and got up the next morning. Half awake I crawled out of the burrow.

I was surprised to find a beautiful tree where I had plant the bean. I must be dreaming. Better get a cup of coffee to wake up. Better make that two cups.

After five cups of coffee, I got up the courage to check again. And, it was still there.

I gingerly touched the box and it felt solid.

I carefully checked inside the stand and could see its roots.

I took a deep breath and inhaled its spruce pine scent. No question about it, it was a living, breathing and very much alive tree. … It was a genuine Christmas miracle.

 After a silent prayer of thanks, I began to push it towards the burrow
so I could share this Christmas miracle with friends and family. 

Christmas Decoration Scavenger Hunt

There are a lot of differences between us critters and humans. For one thing we are so much more adorable than you humans will ever be. Our Sunflower Seed Guinness will win a craft beer competition every time. We do share one thing in common – politicians. More specifically, an age old institution called “City Hall.” Well, our esteemed elected officials on the Woodpile Council transferred money from the Christmas budget to their meeting snack budget. Because of the reduced Christmas budget they stored last year’s decorations in some cheapo storage burrow. Not surprising when we went to retrieve the decorations we found the burrow had collapse smashing everything to bits. Yes, you guessed it there was no money left in the Christmas budget to buy new ones.

We convened an emergency meeting of the Woodpile’s greatest minds to seek a solution. The Phantom Chipmunk (notorious criminal genius) proposed an elaborate plan for stealing the Christmas Tree at Rockefeller Center in New York City. This plan was rejected because we couldn’t afford the electric bill to turn all those lights on. Vinnie the P., always looking for a new challenge, suggested we glue the broken decorations back together like a jigsaw puzzle. We asked Vinnie to calculate how long that would take. He said optimistically we could complete it by the year 2025. Mrs. Spot our esteemed school mistress suggested we have the little ‘munks color paper decorations. Everyone was enthusiastic  about this suggestion until the Woodpile weatherman pointed out we are in a pattern of rainy weather and the decorations wouldn’t last long.

The meeting went on for hours with various ideas being considered. Chippy Jr. wandered into the meeting to ask me if I could make hot cocoa for him and his friends. I explained I was too busy trying to help find a solution to our dilemma. Chippy Jr. asked why we didn’t just go collect all of the decorations the humans left in their yards from 2019 and never bothered to pickup? The entire think tank of brilliant minds was stunned into complete silence with this simple but highly practical suggestion. Mrs. Spot was to first to recover and declared Monday to be a school “field day” and began making plans for a Christmas decoration scavenger hunt.

The students had a great time on the scavenger hunt. In fact, they had so much fun, they created a short humorous play about their adventures:

“If you were a Christmas decoration where you would you be hiding?”

“Maybe they are under the logs?”

 

Asking a passing elderly human lady -
“Have you seen any Christmas decorations around here, they are not under the logs?”

 

The lady replied “Have you looked under your paw?”

“[Crashing noise] Oops, did I just smash a Christmas bulb?”

“At least there are lots more!”

 “I going to be rich, this one is made out of gold.”

“Hmmm, how to bring them back to the Woodpile? I don’t think I can stuff them in my cheek pouches.

"Look this bulb comes with its own ribbon to drag it.”

 

 As the curtain closes on the stage the narrator remarks:

For years you have blamed the cat

 for all those broken bulbs ...

 

Childhood Aspirations and the Power of Imagination

I know all of my fans are “young at heart” but are adults with real world responsibilities. Just for a moment lets step back in time to before you grew your whiskers and had boundless energy. What did you imagine you would be when you grew up? Doctor? Scientist? Chef? World famous blogger? For me it was none of the above. My dream was to grow up to be a WWI flying ace just like my hero, Snoopy. Every fall I would watch the TV special in which Snoopy climbed onto his dog house and it magically turned into a plane and he fought dog fights with the Red Baron. (At the time I didn’t know he was just a cartoon character).

At the Woodpile, one day an old bird house fell out of the tree above and landed on a stump. It had seen better days. The paint had long ago peeled away. For me, it was the ultimate structure to play on. With just a bit of imagination it became a flying dog house.

I heard a loud “thud” and climbed up to investigate

 

As a little ’munk this was the coolest most awesome looking play ground.

Checking to see if any birds were at home.

I climbed up into the “cockpit”

As I grabbed hold of the controls and fired up the engine it transformed into a flying dog house before my eyes. Piloting the plane I could feel the wind rushing by.

My older brother did not want to be left out. As the red baron hot in pursuit of me swooped down, my brother devised a plan.

 With perfect timing he jumped aboard.

 Holding on tightly he yelled to the Baron “Let’s get him!”

He manned the machine gun with his two paws as they tried to shoot me down.
(Some serious sibling rivalry issues!)

When they ran out of ammo, my brother started throwing sunflower seeds at me!

Well Dad had enough of that and told us it was time to let the other critter kids play.
So ended my dream of becoming a WWI flying ace.

Thanksgiving Day Feast and the Big Game

It is that time of year again, for the Thanksgiving Day feast and the Big Game. We at the Woodpile have much to be thankful for. We have had a bountiful seed harvest, Tomato Bob had the best tomato harvest of his life, he opened  a pizzeria, we got a fresh load of wood to spruce up the Woodpile, and my investment in a toilet paper company stocks has paid off handsomely.

I have been asked to prepare my signature dish for Thanksgiving meal: raw pumpkin seeds in the pulp. It is the equivalent of what you humans call oysters on the half shell. (Once you try it once, you will never go back to pumpkin pie again). The real trick to preparing this exquisite treat is to find a pumpkin at the peak of ripeness that hasn’t turn into mush yet. It sometimes takes me days of checking all the pumpkins used as decoration around the neighborhood to find the perfect one to “liberate.” It helps to have a discriminating sniffer. I have learned to pick out the best pumpkin by smell.

The perfect pumpkin it scored 99 out a 100 for ripeness.

The kids couldn’t wait for dinner and got into the pumpkins seeds for breakfast.

Almost ready to be served.

The second I served it, Bushy pounced on the tray. Squirrels are ravenously hungry at this time of year. Evolution programmed them to put on as much weight as they could for the winter. Obviously today with seed marts and modern storage units, it is totally unnecessary. Bushy likes to use it as an excuse to stuff his face with his favorite foods.

Having stuffed out ourselves with ten pounds of pumpkin seeds it was time to watch the Big Game at the stadium. In recent years the Woodpile has tried to host a different type of game each year. We opted for a “Football” game. No not American football but European Football, I think you call it soccer. The Woodpile Council couldn’t find enough cash in the budget to build a regulation soccer field, so they chose to rent a soccer field. They checked out a bunch of human size fields and realized it would take 90 minutes for a player to get the ball down the length of the field. My cousin Vinnie suggested they get a miniature field from an arcade. It would be the perfect size for critters. As a bonus it came with two teams. The Woodpile Mayor made the arrangements. The rental field was delivered Thanksgiving Day.

The referee explained the rules of the game. After fifteen minutes of listening to the ref, the crowd grew inpatient and started tossing sunflower seeds onto the field. The ref wrapped things up real quick, saying the idea was to get the ball into the opposing team’s goal. (Why couldn’t he have just said that 15 minutes ago!)

Chipmunks have a unique advantage when it comes to playing the goalie position. We can stretch out of bodies to fill up nearly the entire goal. Although this fella has left a gap in the upper right corner.

 The guest team's goalie ran out to grab the ball but missed and watched helplessly as …

 … Chippy Jr. took advantage of an unguarded goal and sneaked through the yellow defenders to score! 

 

 The referee is on the lookout for rule breakers. It doesn’t take him long to find one.

 

He flagged one of the guest team members for illegal contact: paws to the head. 

 

A member of the guest team is distracted by a spectator
“offering” free beer and the ball rolls right past him.

The guest team has the ball and a member of the Woodpile team is ready to stop them.

Woodpile goalie sits on top of the net for a better view.

Unfortunately, the guest team’s best player makes an amazing move and scores. The game is all tied up.

The spectators are on the edge of their logs with only minutes left in the game.

In desperation the Woodpile coach signals “straight shot.” One of Woodpile teams dribbles the ball straight down the field.

 

 

He jumps over players …

 

The spectators cheer him on

He slips through a small gap in the defenders line to score!

In classic chipmunk fashion, he does the puffed cheek victory dance.